Mysteries of the senses: The boy who broke almost every bone in his body – but didn’t feel any pain…and the man who ‘tastes’ sounds Paul Walters and sister Vicky were born with the disorder congenital analgesia It means messages carrying ‘warnings’ of pain in the brain are interrupted Only a few hundred people worldwide […]
Taking a common form of heartburn medication may moderately raise the risk of contracting COVID-19, according to a new study. Based on an online survey of more than 86,600 people, more than 3,300 of whom caught COVID-19, the results suggest that those who take proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) may be about 2.2 to 3.7 times […]
A recent study found that brown and organic rice sold in the UK tends to contain significantly more arsenic than white inorganic varieties that are often considered less healthy. Arsenic is found in many foods but can be especially concentrated in rice, particularly in the husk, which is removed to produce white rice but retained […]
A steroid called dexamethasone reduced the death rate among hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 infections in a large clinical trial, U.K. researchers announced today (June 16). One caveat: The trial data have not been published and have not undergone scientific review. Leaders of the U.K.-based study, known as the Randomized Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) […]
Little evidence supports the new recommendations for clinical screening for drug use. Do the potential benefits outweigh the potential harms? In the June 9 issue of JAMA, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that clinicians screen for unhealthy drug use (that is, any use of drugs that are illegal or medications not used […]
According to a widely cited forecasting study, relaxed social distancing rules will lead to a two-fold increase in deaths from COVID-19. Predicting how much the mortality will increase, however, is fraught with huge uncertainties, as epidemiologists like me well know. That’s because the forecast relies on assumptions about what will happen in the future. To […]
The majority of women’s healthcare units in the UK, including services such as maternity and gynaecological cancers, have adapted well to the initial COVID-19 outbreak, according to a new survey by University of Warwick researchers. However, there are concerns that without greater planning for the long-term they could be storing up problems that could adversely […]
We’ve all made online purchases where the expectation is very different to the reality. When one mum bought a pair of veneers online for £3.98, though, she didn’t have high hopes. Sara Hamilton, 30, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, was unhappy with her smile after they become damaged through sugar decay. Sara then decided to make […]
Credit: CC0 Public Domain America’s coronavirus epicenter of New York recorded a new single-day high of 799 COVID-19 deaths Thursday but Governor Andrew Cuomo said the rate of hospitalizations continued to fall. Cuomo said 799 people died in the last 24 hours, outdoing the previous high of 779 announced on Wednesday, but added that the […]
There are three main types of pain: nociceptive pain, the type we’re most familiar with, from bee stings and ankle strains to inflammatory arthritis. There’s neuropathic pain, arising from damage to the peripheral nervous system or the brain itself due to disease or injury. Then there are functional pain disorders arising from complex organic dysfunction, […]
