Practice Management
Patients taking glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs like semaglutide for diabetes may have a lower risk of opioid drug overdose, according to a new study led by National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow, MD, published in JAMA Network Open. Previous empirical studies and anecdotal reports of fewer drug cravings among individuals with type 2 diabetes and comorbid opioid use disorder who use semaglutide inspired the study. Because the GLP-1 drugs are relatively new, there …
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A cross-sectional study of data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey from 2017 to 2020 of 8,021 adults found that 14% of U.S. adults experience absolute iron deficiency (defined as serum ferritin less than 30 ng/mL regardless of transferrin saturation), while 15% have functional iron deficiency (defined as serum ferritin greater than or equal to 30 ng/mL with transferrin saturation less than 20%). Absolute iron deficiency is more prevalent among younger women, however, …
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Vaccination may protect people from serious cardiovascular disease associated with COVID-19. As published in the European Heart Journal, researchers in Sweden studied risk windows in the time immediately after each of 3 doses of the COVID vaccine and assessed several outcomes. The risk of cardiovascular events for patients vaccinated with 3 doses was generally 20–30% lower than for those with no vaccinations. Additionally, stroke risk was lower after vaccination than without, while the risk of …
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Cases of whooping cough have surged in 2024, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting at least 15,661 cases in the United States through September 21, marking a return to pre-pandemic levels. Preliminary data shows that about 5 times as many cases have been reported compared to last year, according to CDC. Pennsylvania recorded the highest number of cases at 2,087, followed by New York with 1,781. Public health experts are concerned …
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Healthcare workers receiving a COVID-19 booster vaccine had a 45% lower risk of having symptoms 6 weeks after infection, as published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. From December 2021 to April 2022 (during the omicron period), workers who had COVID-19 and had also received a 3rd COVID-19 vaccine dose had a lower prevalence of any symptoms compared to those who did not have a 3rd dose when measured at 6 weeks post-infection (adjusted odds ratio …
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A study in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that young individuals with hypertension may benefit from low-level tragus stimulation (LL‐TS). The device-based therapy is a noninvasive method of tragus stimulation with an ear clip, targeting the auricular branch of the vagus nerve. In the small study of 40 patients aged 18 to 39 years, LL‐TS was applied on the intervention group (IG) for 3 months on the tragus (20 Hz, 1 mA, 1 hour per day). …
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Some older triptan drugs are better at relieving acute migraine pain than newer drugs, a systematic review and analysis of 137 randomized controlled trials suggests. As published in BMJ, researchers considered pain relief and freedom from pain at 2 hours in addition to sustained freedom from pain at 24 hours for nearly 90,000 participants who were randomized to one of 17 oral migraine drugs or placebo. All 17 drugs studied were more effective than placebo. …
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From 2025 to 2050, the world could see more than 39 million deaths that are directly attributable to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Researchers from several global institutions studied 520 million individual records and estimated deaths and illnesses attributable to AMR across 204 countries from 1990 through 2021. As it turns out, deaths from AMR fell more than 50% among children younger than age 5 but increased more than 80% among adults 70 and older, according to …
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A newly discovered COVID strain known as XEC has emerged worldwide, according to an outbreak tracking tool by Scripps Research. The omicron variant KP.3.1.1 made up 52.7% of COVID-19 cases between September 1 and September 14, 2024, yet the XEC COVID-19 variant and another known as MV.1 seem likely to become the next dominant strains, according to a news item in USA Today. First appearing late June in Berlin, Germany, the XEC strain has been …
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Alaska’s state health department confirmed that an infant has died from pertussis amid the ongoing epidemic in Alaska, which has been observed mostly in south central regions of the state. Infants are at the highest risk for severe disease, and 12% of cases have been reported in infants. Of those infants, 45% have been hospitalized. In all, 70% of cases are among children under the age of 15 years old. As of September 6, 2024, …
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