Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwhvJ2CTKL/

The kissing bug is the popular name for the triatomine bug, a blood sucking insect that tends to attach to the faces of sleeping victims. This insect carries the parasite Trypanososma cruzi which causes Chagas’ disease. Normally found predominately in Central and South American as well as Mexico, now this bug and its potentially deadly baggage is spreading across the United States. As of this date, cases of Chagas’ disease have occurred in 8 states: Texas, California, Arizona, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas. The bad news is that these kissing bugs have been seen in 32 states.

If the bug bites you on the face and you rub the bite, you are likely to rub some of the bug debris containing the Trypanosoma parasite into your skin. As the parasite sets up shop, you will develop Chagas disease, acute phase, with fever, eyelid swelling, fatigue, body aches, rashes, swollen glands, appetite loss, diarrhea, and vomiting. This acute phase and demands immediate diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics.

Should you fail to recognize the signs and symptoms and the parasite persists untreated, , the Chageas disease moves into the chronic phase. It invades your heart and esophageal tissues. Years later, you develop heart failure, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, difficulty swallowing, and severe constipation. At this point, the parasite cannot be eliminated and only the symptoms can be treated.

As usual, the best treatment is prevention. Since there is no vaccine for Chagas’ disease, you must take precautions to avoid the kissing bugs. That includes use of insect repellent, wearing clothes that cover, staying in bug-free rooms with screening and/or air conditioning, and avoiding of possibly contaminated raw fruits and vegetables.

https://www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com/news/kissing-bug-disease-spreading-in-us-cdc-report-says/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/chagas-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20356212

#kissingbugs #chagas #parasite #trypanosomiasis #triatomine

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwgkXgDFge/

Stanford neuroscientists have tagged the reticular thalamic nucleus (RT) as a likely trigger for characteristic autistic behaviors in mammals. This neuronal plexus carries signals from the thalmus, the brain’s sensory relay station, to the cerebral cortex, the center for conscious thought, sensory, and motor activity.

Using autistic mice, the Cntnap2 knockout line, they observed heightened neural firing and seizure-like electrical activity in the reticular thalamic nucleus when animals received stimuli that triggered characteristic autistic behaviors. By suppressing this abnormal neural firing with the experimental anti-seizure medication Z944, the researchers reversed the animals’ hypersensitivity to stimuli, increased motor activity, repetitive behaviors, and lack of social interactions. In short, they suppressed the animals’ autistic tendencies.

This research now puts a focus on the reticular thalamic nucleus as a treatment target for autism spectrum disorder. Expect to hear more about this ..…someday soon.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw4682

#autism #asd #reticularthalamicnucleus #seizures #antiepileptics

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwf2u9FNvx/

When a woman’s eggs are harvested from her ovaries in preparation for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), they are covered by so-called cumulus cells. These cells must be removed after IVF and before ICSI in order to obtain viable fertilized eggs for implantation. The traditional method for cumulus removal, CR, involves vortexing using manual pipetting. This process often damages some of the eggs, the oocytes.

Enter biologists at Cornell University with a microfluidic chip through which eggs can pass and be cleansed of cumulus cells with vibration-induced flow. The chip has a spiral array of micro-pillars that separate the smaller cumulus cells from the larger oocytes and flush them out of the chip.

Pre-clinical studies using a mouse model showed the process to be fast, efficient, and gentle for the eggs. As many as 23 oocytes were simultaneously cleaned successfully with the potential for fertilization and embryo initiation similar to those for manual pipette cleaning. Hopefully, after this method undergoes additional testing, it will be ready for the clinic……someday soon.

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2025/lc/d5lc00414d

#oocytes #cumulus #ivf #icsi #microchip #cleansing

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwe9yfDnI2/

Azelastine nasal spray, marketed as Astepro but also available as a generic, can reduce your chances of developing a CoVid infection by a factor of 3 and cut your chances of developing a common cold by a factor of 3.5. German researchers at Saarland University recently published their double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 450 participants in the JAMA Internal Medicine Journal.

Half the subjects received azelastine 0.1% nasal spray three times a day for 56 days. The control subjects used a similarly-appearing but inactive nasal spray. Respiratory infections were confirmed using PCR analyses. The results showed that only 2.2% of the azelestine sprayers developed CoVid compared with 6.7% of controls. Only 1.8% of azelestine sprayers developed rhinovirus infections compared with 6.3% of controls.

Generic azelastine spray is a prescription medication. Astepro Spray, the same medication, is available over-the-counter. If you think you might benefit, give it a try.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2838335

#azelastine #astepro #allergy #CoVid #rhinovirus #commoncold

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOweKVlCSKY/

A single RSV vaccination is protective for vulnerable adults through 2 consecutive RSV seasons. This the conclusion of a multicenter, collaborative study headed by investigators at Vanderbilt University. They studied 6958 persons 60 years or older hospitalized with respiratory illness in 20 states from 2023 into 2025.

The vaccine effectiveness for preventing a hospitalization with Respiratory Syncytial Virus was 69% during the first year following vaccination and 48% during the second year yielding an average effectiveness over the 2 years of 58%. The year-to-year change was not significant.

Drilling down on the study population, the 2 season vaccine effectiveness was lower for immunocompromised patients at 30% compared with 67% for the immunocompetent and lower at 58% or those with cardiovascular disease versus 80% for those without it.

Work is now ongoing to determine when individuals with complicating medical conditions such as immunosuppression and/or cardiovascular

disease should receive RSV boosters. Also expect to see recommendations from infectious disease specialists regarding when otherwise healthy older individual should receive boosters.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2838490

#rsv #vaccination #hospitalization #immunosuppression #cardiovascular

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwdSuilDQG/

Acupuncture therapy can effectively reduce disability for those with low back pain. That’s the result of a Kaiser Permanente randomized, study of 789 older adults in 3 healthcare systems across the US and recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Network publication.

Two experimental groups received acupuncture: the SA group, standard acupuncture group, received 8-15 acupuncture sessions plus usual medical therapy (UMT) of pain management and physical therapy; the EA group, extended acupuncture group, received 4-6 additional acupuncture sessions plus the usual medical therapy. All participants were surveyed at 3, 6, and 12 months following therapy initiation using the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire.

When the numbers were crunched, those receiving acupuncture enjoyed a significant reduction in their perceived disability and pain. In most cases, the acupuncture effect peaked at 6 months. Compared with those receiving only UMT, those receiving the SA were 32% more likely to have a significant disability reduction. Those receiving EA were 49% more likely. For significant pain intensity reduction, SA improved the chances 44% while EA improved them 71%.

Bottom line: acupuncture by qualified therapists is a value-added treatment for older adults with chronic low back pain.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2838793

#acupuncture #backpain #disability

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwcerADAD3/

If you’re a victim of motion sickness, listening to soft and joyful music will tamp down your nausea and discomfort. This the result of Chinese study just published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

The researchers studied the reactions of 30 subjects in a simulated driving environment noting their subjective reactions and collecting neurophysiologic data. After tabulation, the numbers revealed which tunes suppressed motion sickness. The winner was soft music at 57.3% improvement closely followed by joyful music at 56.7%. Less effective was passionate, stirring music at 48.3%, with sad music coming in last at 40%. The control group hearing no music enjoyed a 43.4% symptom reduction, better than listening to sad music.

So if you feel a bout of motion sickness is impending, put in those ear buds or turn your auto music system to soft or joyous music.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1636109/full

#motion #sickness #music #soft #joyous

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOwbtF0jPOI/

Pregnancy is a blessed event, but it is accompanied by discomfort and, at times, outright pain. The golden rule during these 9 months is to avoid all but absolutely necessary medications. Over the years, the pain and fever medication of choice has been acetaminophen, better known as the brand Tylenol.

Now, some government officials are warning that acetaminophen during pregnancy might be linked to the later development of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and autism spectrum disorders. Let’s review what we do know about this issue.

In 2024, epidemiologists, neonatologists, and obstetrician-gynecologists at Sweden’s famed Karolinska Institute published a study of nearly 2.5 million Swedish mothers, children and their siblings in the Journal of the American Medical Association or JAMA. It failed to show any statistically significant increased risk for autism, ADHD-hyperactivity, or intellectual disability associated with acetaminophen use during pregnancy once familial-genetic and shared environmental factors were properly factored.

This year, public health researchers from New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center, the University of Southern California, The University of Massachusetts, and Harvard’s School of Public Health published their meta-analysis of 26 studies of more than 3.4 million mother-child pairs across North America, Europe, and Asia.

They concluded that the evidence was “suggestive but not sufficient to infer causality” between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and later neurodevelopmental disorders. Potential study shortcomings included: data regarding maternal drug use relied upon recall; there was data heterogeneity across studies; and there were numerous potential confounding factors.

The investigators advise that pregnant women could continue to use acetaminophen if needed, but at the lowest effective dose and for the shortest necessary duration. They did not recommend complete avoidance of the medication.

The bottom line is that acetaminophen, Tylenol, continues to be recommended as the first-line medication for pain and fever during pregnancy in guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and other medical organizations. These organizations warn against the use of ibuprofen, naproxen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs as their use has been associated with birth defects.

Clinicians continue to emphasize the need to treat fevers during pregnancy. Failure to do so increased risks of childhood heart conditions, abdominal wall defects, and improper development of the brain and spinal cord. Untreated pain and fevers are also associated with miscarriage, preterm birth, and low birth weight.

Bottom line: use acetaminophen only when necessary during pregnancy and stop taking it as soon as the need no longer exists. Everything you put into your body, whether it be medications or food, is a double-edged sword. This is particularly true during pregnancy.

https://www.medscape.com/s/viewarticle/explainer-tylenol-safe-take-during-pregnancy-2025a1000nky?ecd=wnl_tp10_daily_250910_MSCPEDIT_etid7706152&uac=210582CN&impID=7706152

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38592388/

https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-025-01208-0

#acetaminophen #tylenol #pregnancy #pain #fever #birthdefects