Through data-analysis, researchers found that people taking long siestas had higher body mass indexes and were more likely to have metabolic syndrome than those who did not take siestas. It is a common custom in some countries for individuals to take a siesta or midday nap. Sleeping during the middle of the day has the potential to affect sleep quality, cognitive function, and metabolic processes. However, the relationship between siestas and metabolic health is not well understood. A new study led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, assessed more than 3,000 adults from a Mediterranean population, examining the relationship of siestas and siesta duration with obesity and metabolic syndrome. The researchers found that those who took siestas of 30 minutes or longer (long siestas) were more likely to have a higher body mass index, higher blood pressure, and ...
Pfizer on Thursday gained U.S. approval of its newest pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for use in children and infants, helping it compete with a rival shot from Merck & Co. that won a similar OK last year. Pfizer’s vaccine, called Prevnar 20, is designed to protect against infection by 20 strains of the bacteria — seven more than the company’s prior Prevnar 13 version. It has been approved in adults since 2021. Last July, Merck won approval in children of its Vaxneuvance vaccine, which protects against 15 strains. Both companies could soon face more competition as the market has sparked interest from other drugmakers. While vaccines for the bacterial infection are widely available, thousands of cases still lead to hospitalization and death in the U.S. each year. In response, Pfizer, Merck and others have worked to develop new shots that offer better protection, particularly against strains that weren’t ...
Disease detectives with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating a cluster of rare and serious brain abscesses in kids in and around Las Vegas, Nevada, and doctors from other parts of the country say they may be seeing a rise in cases, too. In 2022, the number of brain abscesses in kids tripled in Nevada, rising from an average of four to five a year to 18. “In my 20 years’ experience, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dr. Taryn Bragg, an associate professor at the University of Utah who treated the cases. Pediatric neurosurgeons like Bragg are rare. She is the only one for the entire state of Nevada, and because she treated all the cases, she was the first to notice the pattern and to alert local public health officials. “After March of 2022, there was just a ...
Omar Ford Quest Diagnostics is diving into a quickly growing segment of liquid biopsy with its latest M&A prospect. The Secaucus, NJ-based company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Haystack Oncology in an all-cash equity transaction. Quest will pay $300 million in cash at closing and Haystack has the potential to obtain up to an additional $150 million in performance milestones. If the deal were to close, then Quest would inherit Baltimore, MD – based Haystack’s minimal residual disease testing technology. MRD testing is a specific category of liquid biopsy that identifies circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the bloodstream of patients following surgery and treatment for cancer. In a prospective, multi-institution study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2022, an earlier version of the Haystack technology demonstrated the ability to better identify patients with residual disease for adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery for stage II colon cancer, thereby reducing ...
By LabMedica International staff writers Bladder cancer is often fatal, and survival rates have not improved in the past 30 years. Although immunotherapy has revolutionized bladder cancer treatment, it has significant limitations, as most patients do not respond to the therapy. Checkpoint immunotherapy drugs, which enable the body’s immune system to recognize tumors, are effective for only about 20% of bladder cancers. However, it is unclear which patients will benefit and why these drugs are not more effective for all patients. In a breakthrough that could enhance bladder cancer patients’ survival, researchers have now developed a biomarker signature test to predict which tumors will be responsive to immunotherapy. In the new study, scientists at Northwestern Medicine (Chicago, IL, USA), along with multiple international collaborators, identified three types of tumors that could respond to immunotherapy and two that could not. By employing a combination of gene expression profiling, mutations, and spatial ...
Medicare will cover the new Alzheimer’s treatment Leqembi for all patients eligible under the medication’s label if the Food and Drug Administration fully approves the drug in July, a federal official told members of Congress on Wednesday. The official, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure testified before Congress Wednesday for the first time since her confirmation as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Brooks-LaSure faced pointed criticism from Democrat and Republican members of the House Subcommittee on Health over Medicare’s controversial coverage policy for new Alzheimer’s treatments. The Food and Drug Administration approved Leqembi, which is a collaboration by Biogen and Eisai antibody treatment, on an expedited basis in January. Twice-monthly intravenous infusions of the drug, generically known as lecanemab, have shown promise in slowing the progression of early Alzheimer’s disease. But Medicare, which primarily provides health coverage to senior citizens, currently will only cover the ...
Adults facing wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME) fear their world getting smaller due to loss of eyesight. Roche’s Genentech addresses that issue head-on in its first DTC ad for Vabysmo. The new “Open up your world with Vabysmo” campaign was developed with input from patients, caregivers, advocacy groups and the retinal community impacted by wet AMD and DME. “One of the critical insights was that many of these patients felt when they were losing their vision it made their world feel really small—they didn’t get to go out as much, they weren’t necessarily doing their daily activities of living because they felt like they were losing their sight and therefore inhibiting that ability,” Jennifer Kim, Genentech’s vice president and head of ophthalmology, said. “So that’s how we developed that concept around open up your world. The idea of the campaign is ...
Merck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped Wall Street’s expectations, despite a steep drop in sales of its Covid antiviral treatment molnupiravir. Sales of molnupiravir plunged to $392 million during the period, down 88% from the $3.2 billion reported for the first quarter of 2022. Merck said the decrease is primarily the result of lower sales in the U.S., U.K., Japan and Australia. The company reported total revenue of $14.5 billion for the quarter, down 9% from a year earlier. But excluding the Covid drug, Merck said its revenue grew 11%. Here’s what Merck reported compared with Wall Street’s expectations, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv: Earnings per share: $1.40 adjusted, vs. $1.32 expected Revenue: $14.49 billion, vs. $13.78 billion expected Merck’s stock closed more than 1% higher Thursday. The shares are up more than 3% for ...
ChatGPT can be a useful tool for patients who are seeking medical information and guidance, but the artificial intelligence tool can’t fully replace the value of a human physician – it says so itself. “While I am a language model that has been trained on a vast amount of information, I am not a licensed medical professional and I am not capable of providing medical diagnoses, treatments, or advice,” the chatbot wrote in response to a question from CNN. Still, new research published this week suggests that physicians may have some things to learn from the chatbot when it comes to patient communication. A panel of licensed health care professionals assessed responses to about 200 different medical questions posed to a public online forum, including patient inquiries about medical diagnoses, need for medical attention and more. Responses from ChatGPT were “preferred over physician responses and rated ...
As the nation’s public health emergency expires on May 11, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop reporting its color-coded Covid-19 Community Levels as a way to track the spread of the infection. Instead, the CDC will keep tabs on Covid-19 largely by tracking hospitalizations in some areas, according to a source familiar with the agency’s plans. This is much the same way the agency tracks other respiratory infections, such as the flu. Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator: it generally takes a person a week to 10 days to be hospitalized with a Covid-19 infection. So the switch may mean that the nation is losing its capacity for the earliest warning of an uptick in spread. However, wastewater testing in communities and for air travelers will continue and is expected to close some of those early warning gaps. “We’re not ...
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