/Illo_OCD-27724f7986084161a044194d12e99cf2.png "Antibodies Could Provide New Treatment for OCD")
Scientists at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Roehampton, London, have discovered that patients suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) have increased levels of a protein called Immuno-moodulin (Imood) in their lymphocytes, a type of immune cell. Mice with high levels of this protein were also found to exhibit behaviours that are...
Gender-based violence has been shown to increase during global emergencies. In a paper just published by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, researchers report that according to early evidence it is the same for the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are online in the journal Bioethics. Early results from China suggest that domestic violence has dramatically...
An estimated 25,000 to 28,000 youth transition out of foster care each year in the United States. In a new study, interviews with hundreds of 17-year-olds in the California foster care system reveal not only elevated mental health counseling and medication use, but also that youth with indicated mental health needs feel less prepared to...
As droughts become more frequent and intense, the fragmentation of water service in the U.S. among tens of thousands of community systems, most of which are small and rely on local funding, leaves many households vulnerable to water contamination or loss of service, a new Duke University analysis finds. These vulnerabilities aren’t distributed equally, the...
Public health scientists predict that school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic will exacerbate the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States. Andrew Rundle, DrPH, associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and colleagues expect that COVID-19-related school closures will double out-of-school time this year for many children in...
Surgical masks may help prevent infected people from making others sick with seasonal viruses, including coronaviruses, according to new research that could help settle a fierce debate spanning clinical and cultural norms. In laboratory experiments, the masks significantly reduced the amounts of various airborne viruses coming from infected patients, measured using the breath-capturing “Gesundheit II...
The pandemic began in the East, sweeping through cities and towns, disrupting daily life and sowing fear and uncertainty throughout much of the known world. It was the second century CE. And the Antonine Plague, as it came to be called, weighed heavily on the mind of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Today, Marcus is...
Few novel or emerging infectious diseases have posed such vital ethical challenges so quickly and dramatically as the novel coronavirus. An early-view essay in the March-April 2020 Hastings Center Report offers guidance at a time when health care institutions and governments are desperately confronting these challenges. The authors are Prof. Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the O’Neill...
Pauline Lawrence is 63, an age that puts her at increased risk if she contracts COVID-19. Yet, three days a week, she spends 16 hours with someone at even greater risk: a 97-year-old man who depends on her and two other home health aides to survive. “Somebody has to take care of him,” said Lawrence,...
By March 5, Andrew Cencini, a computer science professor at Vermont’s Bennington College, had been having bouts of fever, malaise and a bit of difficulty breathing for a couple of weeks. Just before falling ill, he had traveled to New York City, helped with computers at a local prison and gone out on multiple calls...
