Keeping up with the latest health news can be a pain. Luckily, we’ve got you covered. Here are this week’s top stories from Yahoo News partners.
‘Crapsules… may offer new hope for patients’
A clinical trial funded by Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Research is testing whether pills made from the freeze-dried poop of healthy people can help those with advanced liver disease, Sky News reported.
People with cirrhosis – a condition associated with severe scarring and damage to the liver – have higher levels of “bad” gut bacteria that make them more susceptible to infections. Researchers hope that pills containing feces containing ‘good’ bacteria from healthy individuals will improve the gut health of patients with cirrhosis and reduce the need for antibiotics.
“The ‘crapsules’, which do not have the taste or smell as the name suggests, could offer new hope to patients with cirrhosis who have run out of treatment options,” said Debbie Shawcross, professor at King’s College London and lead researcher on the study. said.
About 300 patients are expected to take part in the study, with participants randomly assigned to receive a freeze-dried stool capsule or a placebo tablet every three months for two years.
Even ‘safe’ levels of pollution can cause changes in children’s brain development
A study published this week found that exposure to levels of certain pollutants considered safe from a regulatory perspective could contribute to changes in a child’s brain function over time, The Hill reported.
Higher ozone concentrations were associated with increased connections in the cerebral cortex – which is responsible for processes such as thinking, memory, consciousness and emotion – but with fewer connections between the cortex and other brain areas, such as the amygdala, associated with it. with emotional processing, and the hippocampus, which plays a role in long-term memory.
Researchers said they hope regulators will consider these findings when setting air quality standards in the future.
“On average, air pollution levels in the US are quite low, but we still see significant effects on the brain,” study author Devyn Cotter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, said in a statement. . “That’s something policymakers should take into account when considering whether to tighten current standards.”
Research shows that daily use of low-dose aspirin may increase the risk of anemia in healthy older adults
A team of researchers from Australia, New Zealand and the United States found that healthy adults aged 65 and over who take low-dose aspirin daily appear to be at increased risk for anemia – a condition that occurs when the body produces too much aspirin . few healthy red blood cells, which can lead to fatigue, shortness of breath or an irregular heartbeat.
The study published Tuesday looked at a group of 19,114 healthy older adults who were randomly assigned 100 mg of aspirin or a placebo. Researchers concluded that those in the aspirin group appeared to have more cases of anemia and reduced levels of ferritin (an iron storage protein) and hemoglobin, Fox News reported.
Nearly half of elderly people in the US use aspirin for preventive reasons, “including thinning the blood to combat cardiovascular disease and prevent stroke,” Fox News reported. The study researchers suggested that older patients who regularly take low-dose aspirin should be monitored by their doctors for anemia.
All adults under the age of 65 should be screened for anxiety, the health panel says
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force on Tuesday recommended for the first time that all adults under age 65 be screened for anxiety, even if they have no symptoms.
The task force consists of an independent panel of volunteer health experts, whose guidance can influence insurance company reimbursements, but doctors are not required to follow the group’s recommendations. This most recent recommendation specifically identified pregnant and postpartum adults as people who should be screened, but noted that there was insufficient evidence to support screening for adults age 65 and older.
Screening for anxiety is usually done through questionnaires during a doctor’s visit, and “doctors want to know how often in the past two weeks a patient has been easily irritable or irritable, has experienced uncontrollable worry, or has felt so restless that it is difficult to to sit still. ,” NBC News reported.
But experts emphasize that while screening tools can help start a conversation about anxiety and anxiety symptoms, the screening tool alone is not enough to diagnose a patient with the condition.
