- Flu, colds and RSV: How to tell when your child is too sick for school
- Hearing aids lessen risk of mental decline, study says
- We finally know why we get more colds and flu in the winter
- Dementia risk may increase if you're eating these foods, study says
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Flu, colds and RSV: How to tell when your child is too sick for school |
A sniffle, a sneeze or a cough can set off alarm bells these days for families with young children. Between colds, influenza, strep throat, RSV and lingering Covid-19, there are a lot of infections swirling about this winter – and they can look a lot alike in terms of symptoms. Public health professionals would prefer if no child with symptoms were sent to school or daycare, where they could spread infections, said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville. But – especially for single parents or caregivers who need to be at work – that is not always the most practical advice, he added. Some symptoms that might mean it's time to keep your child home include high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, trouble eating, poor sleep or problems breathing, said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Donna Mazyck, a registered nurse and executive director of the National Association of School Nurses, breaks it down into two primary considerations: Does the child have a fever, and are they too ill to fully engage with learning? Families should also check their school's guidelines, some of which can offer details about when a child needs to be kept home from school, she said, and other parents will rely more on personal judgment. "When in doubt, consult the school policies and have a plan with a pediatrician," Wen said. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continued to push the importance of vaccinations for this respiratory season, as well as other basic precautions, at a briefing Monday. "Take your everyday preventive actions, such as covering your coughs and sneezes, staying away from people who are sick and staying home if you yourself are sick, washing your hands and improving ventilation in your home and workplaces. We also encourage you to wear a high-quality, well-fitting mask to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses," she said. |
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Hearing aids lessen risk of mental decline, study says |
Hearing aids might be an important tool in the effort to prevent cognitive decline and dementia, according to a new study. Research has established that hearing loss is an important risk factor in the development of dementia, but it's been less clear whether intervening with hearing loss will also treat the progression of cognitive decline, said senior study author Woei Shyang Loh, head of otolaryngology at the National University Hospital and National University of Singapore. The study offers evidence that managing hearing loss may help reduce or delay cognitive decline, Loh said. A meta-analysis of 3,243 studies, the research looked at the association between hearing loss and cognitive decline over a range of time periods, from two to 25 years. The review found that people with hearing loss who wore devices to help performed 3% better in cognitive tests in the short term. The use of hearing aids was associated with a 19% reduction in long-term cognitive decline, the study found. When it comes to cognitive decline, preventing progression is important, the authors noted. "Dementia is far easier to prevent than treat and exceedingly difficult to reverse," said senior study author Dr. Benjamin Tan, Dean's Fellow at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. Hearing loss is fairly easy to correct in developed countries, said Dr. Thomas Holland, physician scientist of the Rush Institute for Health Aging. Holland was not involved in the research. "Get screened for hearing loss, and if you do have hearing loss, speak with your audiologist or physician ENT to ensure appropriate and optimal correction to help stave off the potential dementia risk and cognitive decline," Holland said. |
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We finally know why we get more colds and flu in the winter |
A chill is in the air, and you know what that means: It's time for cold and flu season, when it seems everyone you know is suddenly sneezing, sniffling or worse. It's almost as if those pesky cold and flu germs whirl in with the first blast of wintry weather. Yet germs are present year-round. Just think back to your last summer cold. So why do people get more colds, flu and now Covid-19 when it's chilly outside? The scientists behind a new study may have found the biological reason we get more respiratory illnesses in winter. It turns out the cold air itself damages the immune response going on in the nose. To understand why this happens, the researchers went on a scientific detective hunt. A respiratory virus or bacteria invades the nose, the main point of entry into the body. Immediately, the front of the nose detects the germ, well before the back of the nose is aware of the intruder, the team discovered. At that point, cells lining the nose begin creating billions of simple copies of themselves called extracellular vesicles, or EVs. "EVs can't divide like cells can, but they are like little mini versions of cells specifically designed to go and kill these viruses," said rhinologist and study co-author Dr. Benjamin Bleier. "EVs act as decoys, so now when you inhale a virus, the virus sticks to these decoys instead of sticking to the cells." Those "Mini Mes" are then expelled into nasal mucus (yes, snot), where they stop invading germs before they can get to their destinations and multiply. When under attack, the nose increases production of extracellular vesicles by 160%, the study found. There were additional differences: EV's had many more receptors on their surface than original cells, thus boosting the virus-stopping ability of the billions of extracellular vesicles in the nose. So the nose comes to battle armed with some extra superpowers. But what happens to those advantages when cold weather hits? Reducing the temperature inside the nose by as little as 9° Fahrenheit (5° Celsius) kills nearly 50% of the billions of virus- and bacteria-fighting cells in the nostrils, according to the study. What does that do to your ability to fight off colds, flu and Covid-19? It cuts your immune system's ability to fight off respiratory infections by half, Bleier said. |
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Dementia risk may increase if you're eating these foods, study says |
We all eat them: Ultraprocessed foods such as frozen pizza and ready-to-eat meals make our busy lives much easier. Besides that, they are just darn tasty. Who isn't susceptible to hot dogs, sausages, burgers, french fries, sodas, cookies, cakes, candy, doughnuts or ice cream? If more than 20% of your daily calorie intake comes from ultraprocessed foods, however, you may be raising your risk for cognitive decline, a new study found. That amount would equal about 400 calories a day in a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet. For comparison, a small order of fries and regular cheeseburger from McDonald's add up to 530 calories. The part of the brain involved in executive functioning – the ability to process information and make decisions – is especially hard-hit, according to the study. Men and women in the study who ate the most ultraprocessed foods had a 25% faster rate of executive function decline and a 28% faster rate of overall cognitive impairment compared with those who ate the least overly processed food. "While this is a study of association, not designed to prove cause and effect, there are a number or elements to fortify the proposition that some acceleration in cognitive decay may be attributed to ultraprocessed foods," said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine and nutrition, who was not involved in the research. "While short of proof, this is robust enough that we should conclude ultraprocessed foods are probably bad for our brains." There was a twist, however: If the person's overall diet quality was high – meaning they also ate a lot of unprocessed whole fruits and veggies, whole grains and healthy sources of protein – the association between ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline disappeared, Katz said. |
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The full effects of the Covid-19 pandemic continue to come to light. A recent study found that it actually changed the brains of teenagers. You all know that I am the father of three teenage girls, so I personally saw what they were going through: concern over the uncertainty of what was happening, on top of a severely reduced social structure due to not being around friends. Even before the pandemic, researchers had been doing MRI scans on teenage brains every couple of years to try to gain understanding of gender differences in depression among adolescents. When Covid hit, they were able to compare scans of brains before and after the pandemic in order to observe physical changes. What they found was staggering: The brains aged more quickly. What this means is that the cortex, the outer layer area responsible for executive thinking, got thinner. This typically happens with age, but it seemed to happen much more quickly during the pandemic for these adolescent brains. Looking deep in the brain, the areas responsible for the ability to regulate emotions also aged more quickly. The participants reported more severe symptoms of anxiety, depression and what scientists call internalized problems – meaning feelings of sadness, low self-esteem and fear, and trouble regulating their emotions – after the first year of the pandemic. The hard part is that this pandemic is unprecedented, so we don't really have a lot to base this research on in terms of what is likely to happen in the future. What we can say is, the types of changes seen in the brains during that time frame are ones that typically take years and years and are usually associated with what are known as adverse childhood experiences. We don't know how long these effects could last and whether some might be reversed, but that's why it's important that the researchers continue this study.
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