Health and Disability

Fewer nursing home residents with dementia are receiving feeding tubes, a result of increasing evidence that suggests the practice causes unnecessary suffering and does little to prolong life.

The proportion of advanced dementia patients who had feeding tubes placed when they were unable eat or drink on their own dropped 50 percent between 2000 to 2014 (12 to 6 percent), according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers with the Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research, an affiliation of Harvard University, analyzed data from more than 71,000 nursing home residents across the U.S.

They also found that feeding tube use decreased across racial groups, but remained higher among blacks, declining from 38 to 18 percent. Among white residents, insertion rates declined from 9 to 3 percent.

Using technology adapted from NASA's Mars lander as part of a large-scale bedsore reduction program, over half of the 13 participating hospitals were able to eliminate the occurrence of new bedsores completely; an additional 3 hospitals achieved reductions ranging from 11% to 90%.

Nurses dramatically cut bedsore occurrence by detecting damage developing under patients' skin early enough to intervene and reverse the damage. This marks a breakthrough in prevention of the chronic condition costing the UK £2.1bn annually, which claimed the life of Superman actor Christopher Reeve.

Bruin Biometrics ("BBI LLC"), which manufactures the early detection technology known as the SEM Scanner, enlisted 13 hospitals (including 10 NHS England Trusts) to participate in a novel Pressure Ulcer Prevention Program (PURP) incorporating SEM Scanner into existing care pathways for pressure ulcer prevention.

The findings from over 1200 patients scanned are the most comprehensive real-world evidence that this early detection technology enables nurses to prevent bedsores before they break through the skin, a conclusion that upends the prevailing view that bedsores cannot be diagnosed and treated until they have caused visible and irreversible damage to the skin's surface.

Parkinson’s disease causes progressive damage to the brain leaving people suffering from the condition with tremor and difficulty moving. The scientists performed the research using mice that were genetically programmed to develop Parkinson’s disease via very high production levels of a protein called alpha-synuclein. That protein is associated with the type of brain damage that Parkinson’s patients suffer from.

The scientists discovered that transplanting bacteria from Parkinson’s sufferers into the mice led to more symptoms than if the bacteria was taken from healthy people. Dr Timothy Sampson, one of the researchers at the California Institute of Technology, said, “This was the ‘eureka’ moment, the mice were genetically identical, the only difference was the presence or absence of gut microbiota. Now we were quite confident that gut bacteria regulate, and are even required for, the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.”

Researchers believe that the bacteria are releasing chemicals that over-activate parts of the brain leading to the damage seen in Parkinson’s sufferers. The bacteria breaks down fiber into short-chain fatty acids and the team believes that these chemicals trigger immune cells in the brain that leads to the brain damage and Parkinson’s symptoms.

The reduction in inflammatory brain lesions seen in the OPERA trials is “unprecedented,” said UC San Francisco’s Stephen Hauser, MD, who served as chair of the Scientific Steering Committee for the OPERA trials and is corresponding author on the NEJM paper reporting the results from those trials. Hauser, professor and chair of UCSF’s Department of Neurology, and colleagues have long championed the idea that B cells play a central role in MS, and their research over many decades was instrumental in bringing ocrelizumab into clinical trials.

As there are no existing treatments for PPMS, the ORATORIO trials compared ocrelizumab with a placebo, and “clinically meaningful” reductions in disability progression and in other markers of worsening disease were seen, results that have never been observed in PPMS.

In all three trials, the most common adverse events associated with ocrelizumab were infusion-related reactions and infections, which were mostly mild to moderate in severity.

If you have allergies and need to carry an epinephrine injector, you know that brand name EpiPens are crazy expensive: $600 or more for a two-pack. After an outcry (and Congressional hearing), EpiPen maker Mylan finally launched a generic this week. According to the company, the list price for a two-pack will be $300.

That brings it into the same price range as Adrenaclick, currently $200 to $300 depending on your pharmacy. If you’re just looking for the cheapest option, make sure to compare prices: the Adrenaclick may still be your best bet. The two devices deliver the same medication, but their instructions are a little bit different—Adrenaclick has two caps to remove, for example, while EpiPen and its generic only have one. So if you’re used to the EpiPen and want to keep carrying the device you’re more familiar with, check out the new generic.

A major menace looms over us. In 2017, many more people could begin dying from common bacterial infections. As resistance to antibiotics booms, diseases from gonorrhoea to urinary tract infections are becoming untreatable – a situation that looks set to get worse as the world reaches a new tipping point next year.

“We are about to reach the point where more antibiotics will be consumed by farm animals worldwide than by humans,” says Mark Woolhouse, at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

This will mean more resistant bacteria, which could be a big threat. The livestock industry has long played down any risk to human health caused by using antibiotics in farming, but the danger is now accepted, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Consuming more than four portions a week is a risk, suggests the study of nearly 1,000 French people, published in the journal Thorax.

The researchers believe it could be a preservative called nitrite used in meats such as sausages, salami and ham that aggravates the airways.

But experts say the link has not been proved and more investigations are needed.

Rather than worry about one type of food, people should be eating a healthy and varied diet, they advise.

Processed meat has already been linked with cancer.

Have you ever noticed how warnings about dangerous prescription drug always seem to surface after the drug is no longer marketed and its patent has run out? As in after the fact? Whether it’s an FDA advisory or a trial lawyer solicitation about harm that may have been done to you, the warnings are always belated and useless. If a drug people took four years ago may have given them liver damage, why didn’t the FDA tell them then? Why didn’t the FDA recall the drug or better yet, not approve it in the first place?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that repeated or lengthy use of general anesthetic and sedation drugs during surgeries or procedures in children younger than 3 years or in pregnant women during their third trimester may affect the development of children’s brains.

Consistent with animal studies, recent human studies suggest that a single, relatively short exposure to general anesthetic and sedation drugs in infants or toddlers is unlikely to have negative effects on behavior or learning. However, further research is needed to fully characterize how early life anesthetic exposure affects children’s brain development.

To better inform the public about this potential risk, we are requiring warnings to be added to the labels of general anesthetic and sedation drugs (see List of General Anesthetic and Sedation Drugs Affected by this Label Change). We will continue to monitor the use of these drugs in children and pregnant women and will update the public if additional information becomes available.

Anesthetic and sedation drugs are necessary for infants, children, and pregnant women who require surgery or other painful and stressful procedures, especially when they face life-threatening conditions requiring surgery that should not be delayed. In addition, untreated pain can be harmful to children and their developing nervous systems.