Researchers are finding heat-related illnesses can also contribute to heart disease and cognitive impairment

At a dialysis center in Atlanta, Lauren Kasper tended to patients resting in hospital beds, some too sick to be transferred to a chair. Many arrived in wheelchairs or walked with canes, their bodies weakened from kidney disease.

As she hooked them up to dialysis machines, Kasper, a nurse practitioner, was struck by how young many of her patients were.

“The majority of the patients that you would see in a typical outpatient center are 60-plus,” she said. “With these patients, some of them were in their 20s and their 30s, 40s. The fact that they were a really significant portion of the population was really startling.”

In 2022, Kasper co-authored a study on the work histories of these patients. Many had labored in landscaping, roofing or agriculture, where they were exposed to harsh chemicals and extreme heat. The study suggested that, in a warming climate, people working in heat-stressed environments may be at even greater risk of kidney disease.

GoodSkin Clinics was operating without a qualified physician to supervise, according to one former employee

A physician’s assistant in New York City says a trendy bicoastal medspa has been operating under the supervision of an Instagram-famous plastic surgeon whose license remains suspended for malpractice, and claims she was fired after refusing orders to inject a patient’s face with an unapproved chemotherapy drug being used as a Botox alternative.

Instead of responding to Michelle Abramov’s concerns, her supervisor at GoodSkin Clinics “shifted the discussion to [her] physical appearance, complaining that she did not wear make-up and stat[ing] that she had ‘bad energy,’” according to a million-dollar whistleblower lawsuit obtained by The Independent.

A week later, Abramov was deemed a “bad fit,” and summarily terminated, the lawsuit alleges.

The surgeon general has a new public health warning. And this time, the hazard isn’t tobacco or alcohol: it’s parenting. 

Two-fifths of parents say that on most days, “they are so stressed they cannot function,” the Office of the Surgeon General reports in an advisory titled Parents Under Pressure. Roughly half of parents term that stress “completely overwhelming.” 

Those dire findings anchor a 35-page report, released in late August, that posits parental stress as “an urgent public health issue.” It draws on data from the American Psychological Association and other sources to build a case that parents are facing more stress than at perhaps any other time in recent history.

Thrilled that lenacapavir, which is injected twice yearly, was highly effective in both gay men and women in clinical trials, HIV advocates worry it will prove too expensive for insurers.

The hotly anticipated results are in from a landmark pair of major clinical trials of a long-acting, injectable HIV-prevention drug that only requires dosing every six months.

They are sensational.

Thrilled over the news Thursday that lenacapavir was 89% more effective at preventing HIV than daily oral preventive medication among gay, bisexual and transgender people, plus previous news that the injectable drug was 100% effective in cisgender women, HIV advocates are looking to the future. They hope that if rolled out broadly and equitably, lenacapavir could be the game changer the nation badly needs.

Researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences identified a compound that affects an area of the brain that triggers hormone production.

The age when girls hit puberty has been falling at an alarming rate for decades, and scientists have struggled to explain why. New research suggests a compound found in a wide variety of products — from cosmetics to air fresheners to detergents and soaps — may send a signal to an area of the brain that triggers the start of puberty. 

It’s the first time researchers have looked at the possible impact of environmental chemicals on the brain to explain the rise in early puberty, said Dr. Natalie Shaw, a pediatric endocrinologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Durham, North Carolina. 

Starting puberty significantly early — younger than age 8 in girls, 9 in boys — may have health effects lasting into adulthood, including higher risks of breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease. It can also lead to shortened stature in both girls and boys. In May, a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that 15.5% of girls experienced early periods — younger than age 11 — and that 1.4% started menstruating younger than age 9.

More than a third of US counties do not have a single medical birthing facility or the services of an obstetric clinician, causing health advocates to warn about the dangers of “maternity care deserts”, a new report says.

The report, issued by March of Dimes, an infant health non-profit, and published on Tuesday, found that 35.1% of US counties are what the group calls maternity care deserts, meaning there are no specialist medical services available to provide care.

These 1,104 counties are home to more than 2.3 million women of reproductive age, the report states, and in these counties in 2022, women gave birth to more than 150,000 babies.

The report says that women living in such care deserts and counties with low access to care are more likely to have poorer health before pregnancy, receive less prenatal care, and experience higher rates of preterm birth. Additionally, the researchers state that women in these areas face a 13% higher risk of preterm birth.

The states with the highest percent of so-called maternity care deserts were North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas, it added.

Researchers found people with obesity who frequently exercised had changes in their belly fat that reduced the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Belly fat tends to get a bad rap, but new research shows that one kind of belly fat can be healthier than others — provided you’re willing to get moving.

“Fat is really misunderstood,” said Jeffrey Horowitz, a professor of exercise physiology in the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. “The fat we have, especially that which is stored under our skin, is a really important place to store our energy.”

In a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Metabolism, Horowitz and his team found that people with obesity who get regular aerobic exercise have healthier belly fat tissue — specifically, that subcutaneous fat stored just beneath the skin — than nonexercisers with obesity.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/16766192

Cost, wait times, transportation problems, and negative interactions with healthcare professionals are causing U.S. women to delay or skip medical care, according to a Deloitte survey. Half of the surveyed women reported forgoing care in the past year, compared to 37% of men. Women require nearly 10% more health services than men but are 35% more likely to skip or delay care. Financial issues, access gaps, and poor provider experiences are key factors. Deloitte suggests increased investment in women's health products and a multi-pronged strategy involving providers, insurers, and policymakers to improve women's healthcare.

A new study links the recent use of personal care products like lotions, ointments and hair conditioners to higher levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates in young children. And children of different racial and ethnic groups seemed to have different levels of exposure to these chemicals.

Phthalates are a group of chemicals added to plastics to make them more flexible and durable. They are also used as ingredients in some personal care products.

These chemicals are endocrine disruptors – which means they can mimic, block or interfere with the body’s own hormones. And when it comes to children, the concern is that they might cause disruptions during key developmental moments.

Research group describes health workers waiting until patients ‘on brink of death’ before providing care

More than two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, state abortion bans are forcing doctors to provide substandard medical care, new research released Monday shows.

The study describes how one woman, whose water broke too early on her pregnancy, ended up in the ICU with severe sepsis because she could not get an abortion to end her doomed pregnancy. Her story is one of dozens of narratives collected by the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, which is housed at the University of California, San Francisco.