WSB-TV is getting real about monkeypox and its impact on minorities.
The disease is hitting the Black community hard, but the good news is that anyone can now get tested for the virus without leaving your car.
Channel 2′s Audrey Washington was at a new drive thru monkeypox testing site opened on North Druid Hills Road in DeKalb, where it was busy on Friday afternoon.
The site tests for both the COVID-19 and monkeypox viruses.
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But workers told Washington that around 25% of the people who showed up Friday came for monkeypox testing.
One-by-one, they drove up and got tested. According to the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, there are more than 16,000 confirmed monkeypox cases nationwide and nearly 1,300 cases right here in Georgia.
Dr. Jayne Morgan, the executive director of the COVID-19 task force at Piedmont Heathcare, said she expects cases to keep climbing.
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“What is happening is exactly what we should have expected to happen, because we saw this occur in COVID, and we certainly saw this occur in HIV as well,” Morgan said.
Morgan said infectious agents generally take hold in populations that have the fewest resources and that are at the most disadvantaged. She said that factor explains why research now shows a growing racial disparity pertaining to new monkeypox cases.
“Here in Georgia we see about 82% of the monkeypox cases have been in Black men,” Morgan said. “It really depends on whether you have health access and what your resources are.”
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Camille Seaton is the first woman in Georgia to have been diagnosed with monkeypox. She said it took about three-and-a-half weeks to recover.
“It’s still all over my body, but the stuff is scarring up and everything,” Seaton said.
She said it’s important to remember that monkeypox doesn’t discriminate, despite the rise of the virus in the Black community.
“Monkeypox does not wait for anyone,” Seaton said. “It does not care who it attacks.”
People at risk for the virus are urged to get vaccinated.
New findings out of Germany suggest that your very first drink in life can alter your brain forever, causing “permanent cellular changes” and throwing synapses out of wack.
These alcohol-induced changes support the theory that “first alcohol intoxication at an early age is a critical risk factor” for future drinking and addiction, said the University of Cologne’s Dr. Henrike Scholz, who worked with colleagues at the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg to publish the report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Friday.
Brain scans of mice that had been intoxicated for the first time showed “lasting changes” in how their neurons communicated even after their binge, particularly by disrupting the flow of energy created by the mitochondria. Similar changes were seen in fruit flies — and both were more likely to go on and increase their alcohol consumption over time, then relapse later in life.
Greater understanding of these mechanisms are crucial to finding the most effective treatment for alcohol addiction and other types of substance abuse, researchers said. Changes that occurred during the study relate to the process of learning and memory and, therefore, the formation of positive associations with drugs.
“Identifying lasting ethanol-dependent changes is an important first step in understanding how acute drinking can turn into chronic alcohol abuse,” said Scholz.
Summary: A single dose of alcohol permanently alters the structure of synapses and the dynamics of mitochondria, researchers report.
Source: University of Cologne
A research team from the University of Cologne and the Universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg has found that even the single administration of alcohol permanently alters the morphology of neurons.
In particular, the structure of the synapses as well as the dynamics of mitochondria are influenced by alcohol. Using the genetic model system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, Professor Dr. Henrike Scholz and her team members Michèle Tegtmeier und Michael Berger showed that changes in the migration of mitochondria in the synapses reduce the rewarding effect of alcohol.
These results suggest that even a single consumption event can lay the foundation for alcohol addiction.
The study has appeared in PNAS .
Which changes in the brain accompany the transition from sporadic drinking to chronic alcohol abuse?
That is the question a joint research project with working groups at the University of Mannheim-Heidelberg and the University of Cologne explored. Most scientific research has examined the effects of chronic alcohol consumption on the hippocampus—the control center of our brain. Because of this, little is known about the acute neuronal interactions of critical risk factors, such as a first alcohol intoxication at an early age, explained Henrike Scholz.
“We set out to discover ethanol-dependent molecular changes. These, in turn, provide the basis for permanent cellular changes following a single acute ethanol intoxication. The effects of a single alcohol administration were examined at the molecular, cellular and behavioral levels,” said Scholz.
The working hypothesis was that, similar to the formation of memory after a single lesson, a single administration of ethanol would form a positive association with alcohol.
The team tested its hypothesis using research in fruit flies and mouse models and found ethanol-induced changes in two areas: mitochondrial dynamics and the balance between synapses in neurons. Mitochondria supply cells and especially nerve cells with energy. In order to optimally deliver the energy to the cells, the mitochondria move.
The movement of the mitochondria was disturbed in the cells treated with ethanol. The chemical balance between certain synapses was also disturbed. These changes remained permanent and were confirmed by behavioral changes in the animals: Mice and fruit flies showed increased alcohol consumption and alcohol relapse later in life.
In particular, the structure of the synapses as well as the dynamics of mitochondria are influenced by alcohol. Image is in the public domain
The morphological remodeling of neurons is a well-known basis for learning and memory. These so-called cellular plasticity mechanisms, which are central to learning and memory, are also thought to be at the core of the formation of associative memories for drug-related rewards. Therefore, some of the observed morphological changes may influence ethanol-related memory formation.
Together with the migration of mitochondria in neurons, which are also important for synaptic transmission and plasticity, the researchers speculate that these ethanol-dependent cellular changes are critical for the development of addictive behaviors.
“It is remarkable that the cellular processes contributing to such complex reward behavior are conserved across species, suggesting a similar role in humans,” said Scholz. “It could be a possible general cellular process essential for learning and memory.”
Both of the observed mechanisms could explain observations made in mice that a single intoxication experience can increase alcohol consumption and alcohol relapse later in life.
“These mechanisms may even be relevant to the observation in humans that the first alcohol intoxication at an early age is a critical risk factor for later alcohol intoxication and the development of alcohol addiction,” explained Professor Scholz.
“This means that identifying lasting ethanol-dependent changes is an important first step in understanding how acute drinking can turn into chronic alcohol abuse.”
See also
About this neuroscience research news
Author: Press Office Source: University of Cologne Contact: Press Office – University of Cologne Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Closed access. “Single-dose ethanol intoxication causes acute and lasting neuronal changes in the brain” by Johannes Knabbe et al. PNAS
Abstract
Single-dose ethanol intoxication causes acute and lasting neuronal changes in the brain
Alcohol intoxication at early ages is a risk factor for the development of addictive behavior.
To uncover neuronal molecular correlates of acute ethanol intoxication, we used stable-isotope–labeled mice combined with quantitative mass spectrometry to screen more than 2,000 hippocampal proteins, of which 72 changed synaptic abundance up to twofold after ethanol exposure. Among those were mitochondrial proteins and proteins important for neuronal morphology, including MAP6 and ankyrin-G.
Based on these candidate proteins, we found acute and lasting molecular, cellular, and behavioral changes following a single intoxication in alcohol-naïve mice. Immunofluorescence analysis revealed a shortening of axon initial segments. Longitudinal two-photon in vivo imaging showed increased synaptic dynamics and mitochondrial trafficking in axons. Knockdown of mitochondrial trafficking in dopaminergic neurons abolished conditioned alcohol preference in Drosophila flies.
This study introduces mitochondrial trafficking as a process implicated in reward learning and highlights the potential of high-resolution proteomics to identify cellular mechanisms relevant for addictive behavior.
With 17 cases of monkeypox in youths up to 15 years old already reported nationwide, schools across the country are advised to be on the lookout for signs of the virus in students.
“They’re keeping a close eye on it in their states, and they’re paying attention to what their governor and their state departments of health are saying — and they’re keeping it on their radar,” Noelle Ellerson Ng, the School Superintendents Association’s associate executive director of advocacy and governance, told CNN.
Ng said schools should continue to follow the infectious disease protocols put in place for the COVID-19 pandemic, and can “review, consume and integrate as appropriate” new monkeypox-specific guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Does every school in the nation have monkeypox policy? No,” she said in the interview posted Thursday by the cable news channel. “Most schools in the nation have infectious disease policy and regulations.”
The CDC’s guidance on monkeypox for schools and other settings that serve children and adolescents spells out that although the current outbreak is associated with sexual contact, “Monkeypox virus can infect anyone — including children — if they have close, personal, often skin-to-skin contact with someone who has monkeypox.”
Less common, the agency says, is spread of the virus “by touching contaminated objects (such as toys or eating utensils), fabrics (clothing, bedding, sleeping mats or towels) and surfaces that have been used by someone with monkeypox.”
Schools and other youth settings should continue to follow what the CDC termed everyday measures to reduce disease transmission, such as staying home when sick; washing hands; and routine cleaning and disinfecting. An ill child should be assessed away from others, the agency said, and staff should have personal protective equipment.
Parents, teachers and staff should know the symptoms of monkeypox, which can mimic the flu and include a rash that develops into fluid-filled pustules that eventually scab over and fall off. Youths with symptoms should be seen by a health care provider, the CDC said, and any “stigma and fear-based exclusion” needs to be avoided.
So far, Utah has no suspected or confirmed cases of monkeypox in youths, said Emma Williams, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. According to the department, as of Thursday there have been 92 probable and confirmed cases of the virus in the state since May.
Nationwide, there have been nearly 17,000 monkeypox cases, mostly in men who have sex with other men. But children and teens are also contracting the virus, with 130 cases reported by the CDC through Sunday in people 20 or younger — including six cases in children no older than 5.
Of the 17 cases recorded by the CDC in children and adolescents 15 and younger, 11 cases are males and six are females. The first two cases of children getting monkeypox in the U.S. came last month in California, and this week in Georgia, one elementary school student tested positive for monkeypox and another was being tested.
Georgia’s Newton County School District said parents of students at the schools involved had been notified and “facilities employees will thoroughly clean and disinfect classrooms and other areas at both schools this afternoon to ensure ongoing safe and healthy learning and work environments for students and staff.”
After three months of surging monkeypox cases, the worldwide outbreak may have peaked, amid evidence that gay men are curbing risky sexual behaviors and more people are getting vaccinated against a virus that spreads by close contact and has overwhelmingly affected men who have sex with men.
New U.S. cases of monkeypox have fallen by about 25 percent in the past two weeks, from 444 cases a day on Aug. 10 to 337 on Aug. 24, according to The Washington Post’s rolling seven-day average. Nearly 17,000 Americans have been diagnosed with monkeypox since the virus emerged in mid-May.
Globally, new cases fell by 21 percent from last week,the World Health Organization reported Thursday.
Even as public health experts cheered the slowdown in new infections, they cautioned that the virus continues to pose a risk — especially in smaller communities outside U.S. urban centers and in developing countries amid vaccine shortages, limited surveillance and insufficient testing — and could increasingly spill beyond the gay and bisexual community. Epidemiologists and health officials also report ongoing challenges with the White House’s new vaccine strategy to stretch the number of doses available.
Inside America’s monkeypox crisis — and the mistakes that made it worse
“There are signs that the outbreak is slowing in Europe, where a combination of effective public health measures, behavior change and vaccination are helping to prevent transmission,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday. But he warned that new cases are continuing to increase in places such as Latin America, where there is less awareness of the virus and limited vaccine access.
Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Los Angeles who has studied the monkeypox outbreak, said a drop in cases is expected after growing awareness and a push for vaccinations. “Whether or not that’s going to be sustained, we just don’t know,” she said. “It’s premature to declare any kind of victory.”
Biden administration officials Friday hailed the “downward trend” of monkeypox cases in major U.S. cities as a positive sign but sidestepped questions about whether the national outbreak had peaked.
“I want to be cautiously optimistic,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledging that more work is needed to contain the virus. “Week over week, our numbers are still increasing, [but] the rate of rise is lower … and things are not even across the country.”
For instance, new virus cases in some regions are outpacing urban centers. Monkeypox cases in Georgia climbed 66 percent between Aug. 10 and 24, a two-week period when cases climbed just 41 percent in New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, according to state and local health department data.
What you need to know about the monkeypox vaccine
New York City health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said his team is hopeful that the virus is on the retreat, after nearly 2,900 New Yorkers were infected in the past three months. About 40 new cases per day were diagnosed in New York City last week, compared with more than 70 cases per day earlier this month.
“In recent days, we have seen cases begin to fall and transmission slow,” Vasan testified in front of the New York City Council on Wednesday, crediting the rise in vaccinations and change in sexual behaviors. “All of this is clearly taking hold and having a positive effect in slowing this outbreak.” Officials in cities like San Francisco and Chicago echoed similar messages this week.
The CDCreported this week that gay men have modified risky sexual behaviors because of the outbreak, citing an online survey that about half of men who have sex with men said they have reduced one-time sexual encounters as well as reduced sex with partners met on dating apps or at sex venues. Experts say the U.S. outbreak was likely accelerated by a flurry of dance parties and casual sex during June’s Pride Month activities, and CDC previously found that 94 percent of cases were associated with sexual or intimate contact.
“Behavior change, along with vaccination, can help slow the spread and end the monkeypox outbreak,” CDC spokeswomanKristen Nordlund said in a statement. She noted that U.S. data contains information from many jurisdictions, “some of which continue to have accelerating case counts, and continued vigilance and action remains important.”
Walensky and other officials said Friday they plan to boost vaccinations and messaging to LGTBQ communities at upcoming gatherings that could accelerate new clusters of infections, such as New Orleans’ Southern Decadence festival that is expected to draw tens of thousands of people over Labor Day weekend. They also said they are warily watching as college students return to campuses, another potential driver of new cases.
State and local health officials are pressing for the Biden administration to provide more support for the response, saying they need additional funding to raise public awarenessabout the virus,hire extra staff to conduct testing and perform contact tracing, and make further investments to strengthen health departments that have been worn down by two years fighting the coronavirus.
Struggle to protect gay, bisexual men from monkeypox exposes inequities
“We appreciate federal agencies’ efforts to provide maximum flexibility to use COVID-19 supplemental funding to address this public health emergency,” Michael Fraser, chief executive of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, wrote to the White House in a letter shared with The Washington Post. “However, given the scope and scale of the outbreak … it is clear that this short-term solution is not viable for the long term.”
Fraser told The Post that an additional $500 million to $1 billion would be needed to fund the state and local monkeypox response for the next 12 months. He suggested that the Biden administration craft an emergency funding package with Congress or make more funding available through CDC’s Infectious Disease Rapid Response Reserve Fund.
Experts also continue to voice concerns about the Biden administration’s vaccine strategy to extend limited supply by splitting each single-use vial into five doses through a different injection method. The plan, rapidly finalized on Aug. 9, has been cheered by some local officials as an innovative way to meet surging demand. But many state and local officials are encountering logistical problems implementing it.
“I have now heard multiple reports from my state and local colleagues that it is very difficult to extract five doses from a single vaccine vial,” Caitlin Rivers, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist, wrote in apost on her Substack page last week, criticizing the abrupt strategy shift. “Taken together, state and local health authorities now have up to one-third fewer doses for use in their communities than they were before the move to intradermal administration.”
The chair of the Senate’s health panel also urged the Department of Health and Human Services to close “alarming” supply gaps in vaccines, for the monkeypox response as well as future outbreaks.
“The Administration must do more to address existing, unacceptable shortages in vaccine supply, institute comprehensive distribution and communication strategies, and develop long-term procurement plans,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote in a letter Tuesday to Dawn O’Connell, the assistant HHS secretary who oversees the vaccine stockpile.
U.S. monkeypox response mirrors early coronavirus missteps, experts say
The White House on Friday defended its vaccination strategy, saying that about 75 percent of jurisdictions around the country have already adopted the new approach, and another 20 percent are planning to do so. Splitting each vial into five doses will allow the United States to “provide more than 3 million doses of vaccines … nearly enough vaccines to reach the entire at-risk population,” O’Connell said on Friday.CDC officials have previously estimated that at least 3.2 million doses of vaccine would be needed to cover the gay and bisexual men who officials consider at highest risk.
But Biden officials said they were open to adjusting their vaccination strategy as they collect more real-world data about the effectiveness of splitting doses.
“We’re really trying to shift the thinking away from ‘how many vaccines can you pull out of the vial’ to ‘how many arms can you vaccinate,’ because that’s going to give us a lot more information,” said Demetre Daskalakis, the White House’s deputy coordinator for the monkeypox response.
Administration officials also have said that despite weeks of complaints of limited vaccine availability, many local officials have yet to fully use their vaccine supply. As of Wednesday, only 11 of the 67 jurisdictions around the country have attested to using at least 85 percent of their vaccine supply, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing policy and internal conversations.
After cases surged in June and July, the Biden administration reorganized their monkeypox strategy and deputized a new White House team to coordinate the federal response. In interviews,Biden officials highlighted their subsequentwork to avert possible outbreaks, such as a recent incident in which a day-care worker in Illinois tested positive for monkeypox, potentially exposing about 60 people, including several dozen children. The worker also served as a home health aide for one elderly person.
The situation alarmed the White House, and Biden officials, fearing an outbreak among children, rushed dozens of vaccines to the people who were potentially exposed. Three weeks later, there have been no additional infections linked to the day care worker, Julie Pryde, administrator of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, told The Post.
In this photo illustration, blood test vials are seen in front of a screen that says ”Monkeypox” (Photo illustration by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
KELLER, Texas – Keller ISD has confirmed someone has been diagnosed with monkeypox at one of its schools.
The individual is part of the Central High School community, but no further details were released about the person. It’s unclear if it was a student or staff member.
READ MORE: Monkeypox continues spreading across North Texas
The district said it is in contact with local health officials, who said the “risk of spread in schools is currently low.”
Areas of the high school are being sanitized to help stop the chances of spread.
Tarrant County Public Health is investigating this case.
Monkeypox is generally transmitted by direct contact with an infected person’s rash, scab, or bodily fluid.
Though it can also be transmitted via respiratory fluids during prolonged skin-to-skin contact such as kissing, cuddling, intimate physical contact, and/or touching items that previously touched the infectious rash/bodily fluids.
Summary: Images of food stimulate a newly discovered population of food-responsive neurons in the ventral visual stream. Researchers believe there may be an evolutionary reason for this neural population that may reflect the significance of food in human culture.
Source: MIT
A gooey slice of pizza. A pile of crispy French fries. Ice cream dripping down a cone on a hot summer day. When you look at any of these foods, a specialized part of your visual cortex lights up, according to a new study from MIT neuroscientists.
This newly discovered population of food-responsive neurons is located in the ventral visual stream, alongside populations that respond specifically to faces, bodies, places, and words. The unexpected finding may reflect the special significance of food in human culture, the researchers say.
“Food is central to human social interactions and cultural practices. It’s not just sustenance,” says Nancy Kanwisher, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines. “Food is core to so many elements of our cultural identity, religious practice, and social interactions, and many other things that humans do.”
The findings, based on an analysis of a large public database of human brain responses to a set of 10,000 images, raise many additional questions about how and why this neural population develops. In future studies, the researchers hope to explore how people’s responses to certain foods might differ depending on their likes and dislikes, or their familiarity with certain types of food.
MIT postdoc Meenakshi Khosla is the lead author of the paper, along with MIT research scientist N. Apurva Ratan Murty. The study appears today in the journal Current Biology.
Visual categories
More than 20 years ago, while studying the ventral visual stream, the part of the brain that recognizes objects, Kanwisher discovered cortical regions that respond selectively to faces. Later, she and other scientists discovered other regions that respond selectively to places, bodies, or words. Most of those areas were discovered when researchers specifically set out to look for them. However, that hypothesis-driven approach can limit what you end up finding, Kanwisher says.
“There could be other things that we might not think to look for,” she says. “And even when we find something, how do we know that that’s actually part of the basic dominant structure of that pathway, and not something we found just because we were looking for it?”
To try to uncover the fundamental structure of the ventral visual stream, Kanwisher and Khosla decided to analyze a large, publicly available dataset of full-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses from eight human subjects as they viewed thousands of images.
“We wanted to see when we apply a data-driven, hypothesis-free strategy, what kinds of selectivities pop up, and whether those are consistent with what had been discovered before. A second goal was to see if we could discover novel selectivities that either haven’t been hypothesized before, or that have remained hidden due to the lower spatial resolution of fMRI data,” Khosla says.
To do that, the researchers applied a mathematical method that allows them to discover neural populations that can’t be identified from traditional fMRI data. An fMRI image is made up of many voxels — three-dimensional units that represent a cube of brain tissue.
Each voxel contains hundreds of thousands of neurons, and if some of those neurons belong to smaller populations that respond to one type of visual input, their responses may be drowned out by other populations within the same voxel.
The new analytical method, which Kanwisher’s lab has previously used on fMRI data from the auditory cortex, can tease out responses of neural populations within each voxel of fMRI data.
Using this approach, the researchers found four populations that corresponded to previously identified clusters that respond to faces, places, bodies, and words. “That tells us that this method works, and it tells us that the things that we found before are not just obscure properties of that pathway, but major, dominant properties,” Kanwisher says.
Intriguingly, a fifth population also emerged, and this one appeared to be selective for images of food.
“We were first quite puzzled by this because food is not a visually homogenous category,” Khosla says. “Things like apples and corn and pasta all look so unlike each other, yet we found a single population that responds similarly to all these diverse food items.”
The food-specific population, which the researchers call the ventral food component (VFC), appears to be spread across two clusters of neurons, located on either side of the FFA. The fact that the food-specific populations are spread out between other category-specific populations may help explain why they have not been seen before, the researchers say.
“We think that food selectivity had been harder to characterize before because the populations that are selective for food are intermingled with other nearby populations that have distinct responses to other stimulus attributes. The low spatial resolution of fMRI prevents us from seeing this selectivity because the responses of different neural population get mixed in a voxel,” Khosla says.
MIT neuroscientists have discovered a population of food-responsive neurons located in the ventral visual stream. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT
“The technique which the researchers used to identify category-sensitive cells or areas is impressive, and it recovered known category-sensitive systems, making the food category findings most impressive,” says Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study.
See also
“I can’t imagine a way for the brain to reliably identify the diversity of foods based on sensory features. That makes this all the more fascinating, and likely to clue us in about something really new.”
Food vs non-food
The researchers also used the data to train a computational model of the VFC, based on previous models Murty had developed for the brain’s face and place recognition areas. This allowed the researchers to run additional experiments and predict the responses of the VFC. In one experiment, they fed the model matched images of food and non-food items that looked very similar — for example, a banana and a yellow crescent moon.
“Those matched stimuli have very similar visual properties, but the main attribute in which they differ is edible versus inedible,” Khosla says. “We could feed those arbitrary stimuli through the predictive model and see whether it would still respond more to food than non-food, without having to collect the fMRI data.”
They could also use the computational model to analyze much larger datasets, consisting of millions of images. Those simulations helped to confirm that the VFC is highly selective for images of food.
From their analysis of the human fMRI data, the researchers found that in some subjects, the VFC responded slightly more to processed foods such as pizza than unprocessed foods like apples. In the future they hope to explore how factors such as familiarity and like or dislike of a particular food might affect individuals’ responses to that food.
They also hope to study when and how this region becomes specialized during early childhood, and what other parts of the brain it communicates with. Another question is whether this food-selective population will be seen in other animals such as monkeys, who do not attach the cultural significance to food that humans do.
Funding: The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Eye Institute, and the National Science Foundation through the MIT Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines.
About this neuroscience research news
Author: Anne Trafton Source: MIT Contact: Anne Trafton – MIT Image: The image is credited to Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT
Original Research: The findings will appear in Current Biology
Study authors led by Dr. Valentin Fuster, director of Mount Sinai Heart in New York City and general director of the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research, looked at 2,499 patients in seven European countries who had a history of type 1 myocardial infarction in the past six months and were either over the age of 75 or a minimum age of 65 with at least one risk factor, such as diabetes or mild or moderate kidney dysfunction.
Half the patients were given the polypill that contained aspirin, ramipril and atorvastatin, while others received the usual standard of care. Patients were followed for a median of three years.
The researchers found 48 cardiovascular deaths in the polypill group and 71 in the usual-care group, meaning patients who took the polypill had a relative risk reduction of 33% for cardiovascular death. The polypill was also favorable in other measures studied in the trial, such as stroke or myocardial infarction.
The polypill and trial come after 15 years of work, Fuster said. He and colleagues decided that one of the main problems in medicine is the lack of adherence to the medication they’re meant to be taking, particularly in the cardiovascular field and most specifically in heart attack patients.
The American Heart Association lists taking medications as prescribed as one of the first things people can do to prevent another heart attack after having one.
“It seems that we have a tremendous kind of tool, which is a simple polypill, that actually is significantly better,” Fuster said. “Probably most of the reason is because of better adherence, because it’s a simple drug, with superb results and the impact is as good or even better than aspirin in the past.”
He said it was notable that the two curves — those who took a polypill and those who received standard care — separated from the beginning and continued to separate as the years go on, meaning there is a feeling that is the study went longer there would be “even more striking” results.
Fuster said that the polypill is something that could have a “very significant” impact on the general population.
According to the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, someone in the US has a heart attack every 40 seconds. There are around 805,000 heart attacks in the country every year — 200,000 of those happening to people who have already had one.
There are some limitations to the research, including that the trial was not performed in a blinded manner and all patients were enrolled before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, warned against making assumptions regarding the global monkeypox outbreak, citing choices made during the early days of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.
In a piece written in the New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane wrote that the emerging epidemiologic pattern of the cases bears a “striking resemblance” to early cases of HIV/AIDS – including that most monkeypox cases in this outbreak have been detected among men who have sex with men.
The virus typically spreads from direct lesion-to-skin contact, and the researchers noted that evidence suggests transmission requires prolonged or repeated exposure.
People can also become infected through contact with infected clothing or bedsheets.
BRITISH SCIENTISTS BEHIND CRUCIAL COVID TRIAL PIVOT TO MONKEYPOX TREATMENT RESEARCH
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, takes his seat for a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Notably, health officials have stressed that the virus is not considered to be a sexually transmitted infection, although men considered at high risk of the disease are recommended to reduce their number of sexual partners and refrain from group or anonymous sex.
During the HIV-AIDS pandemic, the pair noted that the microorganism causing the disease was unknown and, unlike today, no countermeasures like vaccines were available.
“Given how little we know about the epidemiologic characteristics of the current outbreak, it is prudent to heed an observation made during the first year of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: ‘… any assumption that it will remain restricted to a particular segment of our society is truly an assumption without a scientific basis.’ Thus, additional detailed epidemiologic and observational cohort studies, serosurveys and ongoing surveillance for new cases are of critical importance,” Fauci and Lane, who serves as the NIAID Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects, urged. Fauci is leaving his position as White House chief medical adviser and NIAID director in December.
This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak. (Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC via AP)
WILL MONKEYPOX BECOME AN ‘ESTABLISHED STD’? WHY ONE INFECTIOUS DISEASE EXPERT THINKS SO
They said that the challenge going forward is to ensure efficient and equitable availability and distribution of countermeasures, as well as to conduct rigorous studies needed to define what the clinical efficacy may be, identify any potential safety concerns and guide proper utilization.
“Lessons learned during the responses to AIDS and COVID-19 should help us to marshal a more efficient and effective response to monkeypox, and the response to monkeypox should, in turn, help to inform our response to the inevitable next emerging or reemerging infectious disease of pandemic potential,” the pair concluded.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, wears a face mask during the White House COVID-19 Response Team’s regular call with the National Governors Association in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus, Monday, Dec. 27, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are nearly 17,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox and orthopoxvirus in the U.S. and 46,724 cases worldwide.
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The number of cases reported globally dropped 21% in the last week, according to the World Health Organization.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find her on Twitter at @JuliaElenaMusto.
It’s an unfortunate reality many dog owners might have to face, especially if their dog’s breed lives 10 years or more. A new study that is part of the Dog Aging Project found the risk of developing cognitive issues rises by 52% each year after age 10 in many dogs.
But there’s no reason to despair if your furry best friend is showing signs of canine cognitive decline, or CCD, said veterinarian Dr. Dana Varble, chief veterinary officer for the North American Veterinary Community.
“Too often, pet owners think their dogs are just ‘slowing down’ and don’t realize there are things they can do to ease, slow or even stave off cognitive decline as dogs age,” Varble said.
“Studies show that mental activity and exercise are important for a dog’s mental well-being just as it is in humans. Stimulating the brain is important and this can be done easily with food puzzles for example,” she said.
Food puzzles are toys in which owners hide treats, and it’s up to the dog to push, jiggle or jog the treats out of them. Such activities help keep both dogs’ and cats’ brains engaged, experts say.
In addition, “nutritional supplements have been shown to improve signs and slow the decline of CCD. There are also special foods for aging dogs,” Varble said.
Age and activity levels are key
In the new study, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers asked over 15,000 dog owners to complete two surveys between December 2019 and 2020 on their dogs’ health and cognitive status. Then the scientists grouped the dogs by age and analyzed the results
Based on age alone, a dog’s odds of developing CCD increased by 68% for each year after a decade of life. But when other factors were taken into account, such as the breed of dog, existing health problems, sterilization and physical activity, the risk fell to 52% per extra year of life.
Inactive dogs of the same breed, health status, age and sterilization status were nearly seven times more likely to get doggie dementia than comparable active dogs. Whether it’s the inactivity that leads to the dementia or vice versa is unclear, the study authors said.
In addition, dogs with a history of neurological, eye or ear disorders had a higher risk of cognitive decline, according tothe study.
There was good news as well: The study found almost no cognitive decline in dogs below the age of 10.
What to look for
Veterinarians have been studying the signs and symptoms of doggie dementia for years, trying to better understand and help the pets in their care. Here is what to look for, according to experts:
Disorientation: Dogs with cognitive issues can begin to have trouble getting around the house or start wandering around as if lost. They can get stuck behind furniture and not know how to get out or stare without a purpose at the floor, walls or out into space. They may even fail to recognize family members.
Changes in sleep cycles: Dementia can cause dogs toconfuse day and night, and your petcould wake during the night and begin pacing the house, barking or whining. The sleeplessness at night may lead to excessive sleeping during the day.
House training: Some dogs forget years of house training and begin relieving themselves inside, which can make them anxious. They may forget to alert you when they need to go out, or even forget to do their business while outside and soil the home when they return.
Changes in social behavior: Interactions with you and other people in their lives can change. A dog could become extra clingy, fearful or needy. Or the dog might become antisocial, withdrawing from interactions and spending time alone.
Changes in physical activity: A dog with cognitive decline may lose interest infavorite toys, other dogs and people or start pacing aimlessly with no ability to settle down.
Take your dog to the vet if you see any of these signs, and the sooner the better, Varble suggested. “Early intervention can extend and improve the quality of life for our pets,” she said.
First, the vet will check the dog for other causes of the symptoms, eliminating such things as diabetes, loss of vision and hearing, kidney or urinary issues, arthritis, hypertension, and Cushing’s disease, caused by an excess of the stress hormone cortisol.
If you and your vet catch the signs of dementia early, the doctor may suggest a behavior-altering drug approved for dogs by the US Food and Drug Administration which works on the neurotransmitter dopamine to help the decline.
The vet may also put your dog on a brain-healthy diet and encourage more physical activity, socialization and brain-stimulation via food puzzles, teaching new tricks and encouraging snuffles and sniffs on walks.
