For someone with cancer, a bout of COVID-19 could derail treatment — or worse.
But for one 61-year-old man with terminal stage III lymphoma, his coronavirus infection may have been a stroke of good luck.
A recent case study published in the British Journal of Haematology reported that the man had been diagnosed with the disease, presenting with tumors all over his body, not long before he contracted COVID-19, which put him in the hospital for 11 days.
When the respiratory illness cleared, he went home. About four months later, his tumors did, too.
Lymphoma has occasionally been known to clear on its own, according to Dr. Jonathan Friedberg, of the University of Rochester Medical Center. However, certain immune system responses behind how the COVID-19 pathogen mutates in the body suggests that it could also help wipe out other unwelcome cells, report authors said.
“We can’t be 100% sure,” Dr. Friedberg told Forbes. “For many types of lymphoma, there have been well-described spontaneous regressions and remissions.”
He said that for one type of lymphoma, the cancer can go away on its own about 25% of the time.
“But in this case, the lymphoma was more aggressive and spontaneous regressions and remissions are more rare,” he said. “It is pretty surprising in this case and certainly intriguing.”
While rare, some cases of incurable cancers have seemingly disappeared following some viral illness.
The report described a process by which the body’s own unique immune response to COVID-19 could have farther-reaching effects throughout the body. The so-called “storm” of cytokines — proteins responsible for directing your army of T-cells and antibodies — are perhaps just the boost it needed to take cancer to task.
“This massive cytokine response [to COVID-19] can turn on other non-specific immunity, leading to fever and many of the unpleasant symptoms associated with being sick. This stress causes very high levels of cytokines, which may have a direct effect on cancers.” said Friedberg.
Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system, Friedberg noted, and is usually treated with immunotherapy.
The COVID-19 finding could open doors for research into cancer treatment, Friedberg suggested.
A man’s cancer may have actually been helped by his COVID response.Shutterstock
“We are at the beginning of understanding how the immune response to the viruses can have anticancer properties,” he said.
Still, the vast majority of cancer patients have reason to fear COVID-19, which has taken an outsized toll on the patients — and not only because they’re immunocompromised. At various heights of the pandemic, overrun hospitals have had to turn away cancer patients in need of treatment.
A Missouri mom is warning new parents to be vigilant after a strand of hair wrapped around her 5-month-old’s toe acted as a tourniquet and cut off circulation for days.
Sara Ward, 33, told South West News Service that baby Logan could have lost the little piggy after the incident late last month.
Ward said she first noticed a line going across the middle toe of her son’s right foot late one Saturday evening but “didn’t think much of it.”
“It wasn’t looking alarming at that point and we figured maybe it had just got a little bit irritated by something,” the mom recalled in an interview.
However, by Monday, Logan’s toe was still swelling and had turned purple. Ward and her partner rushed to the pediatrician to see what was wrong.
The medic told them it was hair tourniquet syndrome: “a rare clinical phenomenon that involves hair, thread, or similar material becoming so tightly wrapped around an appendage that it results in injury.”
Sara Ward shared this shocking photo of her son’s toe after a strand of hair cut off circulation. The mom is warning of the dangers of hair tourniquet syndrome.Kennedy News and Media
The strand of hair that was wrapped around Logan’s toe was so thin that doctors were worried they could not remove it without surgery.
“They spent a good 40 minutes or so trying to get the hair and they had all these different tools that they were using — tweezers, magnifying goggles and special lights,” Ward recalled. “The toe was very painful for my son so he was crying and kicking and couldn’t keep still as they were trying to get a better look at it.”
The rattled mom continued: “They tried hair removal cream to try and break down the hair pieces and some numbing cream to get deeper with tweezers.”
Doctors decided to keep Logan in the hospital overnight to monitor the toe and make sure the hair had been properly removed and that his circulation was restored.
The following day, Ward and her partner were relieved that the tot’s toe had returned to a healthy pink color. They were able to be discharged without Logan having to undergo surgery.
However, she and other perturbed parents are determined to raise awareness about the dangers of hair tourniquet syndrome, so other moms and dads don’t have to go through the same drama.
Registered nurse and postpartum care expert Karrie Lochner recently shared a message about what parents can do to prevent the issue.
“I think it’s great to do a quick ‘once-over’ on your baby with each diaper change,” she wrote. “Undress them, rub your thumb along their fingers and toes, also taking a close look at their genitals (yep, even girls!).
“When these are seen, they need to be removed immediately,” she added, mentioning in her stories that parents can use hair removal cream such as Nair or nail scissors to release the tourniquet. “If the hair is embedded deeply into the appendage, and unable to be removed by the parents at home, please take baby to the hospital ASAP.
“A lot of people think ‘It’s just a piece of hair, how can you not see it and get it?’ but it’s really difficult with the swelling and the skin starts to kind of form over the hair,” Ward explained. “Now I’m always checking his toes and fingers now and making sure that I’m not seeing any hairs getting wrapped around them.
The incident took place just before the popular parenting page @tinyheartseducation warned of the syndrome on Instagram.
“While hair tourniquets are rare, they require quick recognition and treatment to prevent long-term damage to the body part,” the account’s owners wrote beneath a shocking social media post.
“They’re most commonly seen on infants and toddlers due to their inability to tell us what is going on and where they have pain. Infants who are less than 4 months old are most at risk because 90% of mamas experience postpartum hair loss.”
The post garnered thousands of likes, with multiple moms flocking to the comments section to claim their kids had been victims of hair tourniquet syndrome.
“We have a furry cat and man the amount of fur that gets wrapped around our little one’s fingers and toes are insane,” one user wrote.
The New York State Department of Health warned of an increase in children hospitalized with COVID-19, in a notice sent to doctors on Christmas Eve.
“NYSDOH is closely monitoring an upward trend in pediatric hospitalizations associated with COVID-19,” the notice read.
The jump in hospitalizations of children — who usually face very mild COVID-19 cases — is “concentrated in New York City and the surrounding greater metropolitan area,” according to the health advisory.
Pediatric admissions in the city have risen four-fold from the week starting December 5, 2021, to the week starting December 19, according to the bulletin, which did not quantify the actual number of children hospitalized.
The DOH did not immediately return a message seeking the number of hospitalizations.
About half of the children hospitalized were under five, and therefore ineligible for the vaccine, according to the notice, which encouraged physicians to continue to promote social distancing and wearing “a well-fitting mask” among their younger patients.
In addition, the notice advises doctors to remind parents “not to assume a mild respiratory illness is a routine ‘cold’; test for COVID-19.”
Pediatric admissions in the city have risen four-fold from the week starting December 5, 2021, to the week starting December 19.Shutterstock / Sergii Sobolevsky
Men make up a disproportionately large share of U.S. COVID-19 deaths, accounting for 54.4 percent of fatal virus cases, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
The sex split is even starker in New York City, where men make of 57.5 percent of COVID-19 deaths, according the city Department of Health.
This despite men comprising only 49.3 percent of the U.S. population and just 47.7 percent of national COVID-19 cases, according to the CDC.
Some experts attribute the trend to men’s generally less healthy lifestyles and hesitancy to seek medical care.
“It’s most likely a reflection of lifestyle factors, such as smoking and drinking,” said Dr. Jessica Justman, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. And “women are far more likely to go in for doctor’s appointments than men are.”
Dr. Jessica Justman, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said that men’s susceptibility to the virus is likely due to lifestyle factors.REUTERS
She added, “I have a hunch that women are more likely to present with COVID symptoms at an earlier stage than men do.”
That is, if a man with COVID waits until it’s very serious, then goes into the emergency room, he’s “less likely” to survive than had he sought care sooner.
Other contributing factors to higher male mortality could include women’s relatively higher rate of vaccination, Justman said. According to CDC data, 62.9 percent of American women are fully-vaccinated, versus 58.7 percent of men.
Another factor could be women’s slightly higher rate of vaccination.Bloomberg via Getty ImagesWhen in doubt, said Dr. Justman, ‘Seek the vaccine, seek the test, seek medical care.’AFP via Getty Images
There are also possible “biologic reasons” women have died at a lower rate from COVID-19, including hormonal differences and men having a larger number of the “receptors” that the coronavirus binds to, she said.
The trend is mirrored in the United Kingdom, where men are 24 percent more likely to die than women from the virus, adjusted for age, according to the Sunday Times of London.
Justman’s message to men: “When in doubt, seek the vaccine, seek the test, seek the medical care.”
A mum who was suffering pain in her bum cheek was told she had terminal cancer – just six after she’d been given the “all-clear”.
Gemma Denham, 29, from Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, had already had treatment for cervical cancer after being diagnosed in March this year.
The mum-of-two went through 11 rounds of chemotherapy and 28 sessions of radiotherapy among more invasive treatments.
The treatment went well and on 5 October her MRI results came back clear of cancer, leaving Gemma and her partner Elliot, 31, “over the moon”.
But in the weeks that followed she started to experience a pain in her bum cheek and leg, which caused her to limp.
Knowing something wasn’t right, Gemma called the hospital and was booked in for an MRI of her cervix.
In a cruel twist of fate, the results found the cancer had spread across her pelvis and lower spine – with doctors unsure if something was missed in the earlier scan, or if it had grown back rapidly in the weeks that followed.
Thankfully the cancer has not spread to any organs.
But Gemma was still told she had only a few years left, possibly months, on November 7.
Gemma said: “When they broke the news to me, they did say that there is nothing to offer me going forward – not even chemo as it wouldn’t work.
“My whole body felt like it was on fire when the consultant told me the cancer was back.
“I had a panic attack in the surgery and just couldn’t understand why this was the outcome.
“They told me I had months-to-early years left to live – devastated was an understatement.
“I wasn’t going to be there for my babies after all. We had so many plans for our future and I was so scared I would miss their life – they are still babies.”
Gemma hasn’t broken the news of her terminal diagnosis to her older child, Faith, seven.
She said: “I hope to be around for a very long time for my children – and I will stay as positive as I can be to fight this with all my being.”
SMEAR TEST DIAGNOSIS
Gemma, a dental receptionist, went for a routine smear test in August 2020.
She had been experiencing ongoing leg, pelvic and back pain – which can be symptoms of the cancer.
Gemma, who is mum to Faith, seven, and one-year-old Ellison, had been prescribed painkillers and her symptoms were believed to be due to postnatal depression.
During the smear test the nurse spotted a growth and Gemma was referred to her GP.
Gemma Denham had been prescribed painkillers and her symptoms were believed to be due to postnatal depression.Jam Press
They allegedly said she had a “healthy cervix” but had cervical ectropion – which occurs when cells that line the inside of your cervix grow on the outside.
A smear test looks for the presence of HPV or abnormal cells – neither are a cervical cancer diagnosis, but markers that a woman needs to be followed up.
My main worries were I wouldn’t be here for my children – they are my absolute world and everything I do is for them.
Gemma’s results for HPV came back positive, which is not unusual but means a woman needs another smear test soon.
She was told to wait another three months for a repeat smear as there were not enough cells on the swab to detect abnormalities.
In November 2020, three months after Gemma’s original smear, doctors then found high-grade cells.
An ultrasound showed a mass in her cervix and, in early March 2021, she was given the diagnosis of cervical cancer.
Gemma claims she had previously asked doctors if she had the disease but had been “assured she was too young” for it.
Cervical cancer is most commonly diagnosed in those aged between 30 and 34, and Gemma was only just under this bracket.
Gemma Denham started chemotherapy, radiotherapy, brachytherapy (internal radiation therapy), blood transfusions and platelet transfusions.Jam Press
After her diagnosis, Gemma said: “A part of me felt relieved as crazy as that sounds – I knew I wasn’t going mad.
“I definitely knew my own body and knew something more severe was wrong.
“My main worries were I wouldn’t be here for my children – they are my absolute world and everything I do is for them.”
Gemma immediately started treatment to fight the cancer, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, brachytherapy (internal radiation therapy), blood transfusions and platelet transfusions.
She also had a nephrostomy bag fitted to drain blocked urine while being treated at University College London Hospital.
The brave mum said: “I ended up losing over five stone in weight and due to rapid weight loss I ended up with gallstones.”
ROLLERCOASTER OF RESULTS
Gemma was thrilled to find out her cancer had gone in October, saying: “I was completely over the moon.
“I couldn’t quite believe it but felt a sudden edge of bravery – I was finally going to be okay for my children.
“The results came back from the PET scan and they confirmed the cervical cancer had gone – however I had a slight glow on my right pelvic lymph node.
“My consultant had reassured me that she was pretty much certain that it was the radiotherapy still working in my body so will repeat the PET scan in six weeks.”
But during that wait, the pain in her bum cheek and leg signalled something was wrong – later confirmed with tests.
Gemma Denham hasn’t broken the news of her terminal diagnosis to her older child, Faith.Jam Press
Gemma said: “Since finding out the bad news, they think there may be a clinical trial available for me which will be immunotherapy.
“I’ll be undergoing tests to find out if I’m a good candidate to participate.”
Now the mum is focusing on making memories with her children and hopes to take them to Disneyland, with a GoFundMe page having raised more than £17,000 to aid the special trip.
She said: “[My biggest worry] is not being the best mum I can be for my beautiful babies, and not being able to guide them through the most important journeys in life.
“My children growing up without the one person that loves them the most, more than anything in the world – their mum.”
“[Going forward] my life will be very different, but I will not let cancer define me.
“I need to defy the odds and not be labelled ‘terminal’.”
Obesity could be cured without diet or exercise with a radical trial launched into turning off the so-called “hungry hormone.”
The trial is set to investigate a process that could cut the desire to over-eat and reduce weight in just 40 minutes.
And the process would cost the NHS £1,500 – a quarter of the price of normal fat-loss surgery.
A trial, led by Ahmed R. Ahmed, a bariatric surgeon at London’s St Mary’s Hospital, will see nearly 80 volunteers go through the procedure called bariatric embolisation and have their ghrelin turned off, which is nicknamed the ‘hungry hormone’.
Due to expense and logistics, the NHS performs 6,000 bariatric procedures such as gastric bands, bypasses and sleeves a year, leading to long waiting lists.
Speaking to the MailOnline, Mr Ahmed said that if bariatric embolisation became routine, patients could be out of hospital in two hours.
“You could go in hungry and come out not hungry,” he said.
The doctor said the method’s fast speed and low cost would open up obesity treatment to many more people, but said the effectiveness of it would need to be proved first.
He added: “We really need to know it’s the intervention itself having the effect, and it’s not just a placebo effect.”
The operation, performed under local anesthetic, involves making a small cut in the groin or wrist and passing a hollow wire up through blood vessels.
Studies found that obese patients shed on average almost ten percent of their weight after the procedure.Getty Images
Microscopic beads are then deposited in an artery serving the upper stomach, or fundus, which will block and therefore reduce ghrelin production.
Small-scale studies have found that obese patients shed on average almost ten percent of their weight after the procedure, although some lose much more.
Such weight loss would significantly improve health, reversing type 2 diabetes and cutting the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Mr Ahmed’s team are recruiting 76 obese volunteers, each with a body mass index of between 35 and 50. Half will have blocker beads inserted, the others will get a saline solution placebo, and they will all be followed for a year.
Such weight loss would significantly improve health, even reversing type 2 diabetes.Getty Images/iStockphoto
The trial has received £1.2 million from the NHS’s National Institute of Health Research and is backed by Imperial College London.
Although no patients have yet been given the treatment in Britain, around 25 have had it in the US. Among them was local nurse Kirsten Kerfoot, 32, who has since lost six and a half stone.
The mother of one, who is 5ft 11in and now weighs 15 stone, said: “I can’t remember a time in my life when I haven’t been overweight or obese.
“I used to see an advert for Chinese food on the TV and think, ‘I want it!’ The thought would stay on my mind for days. That was my experience my entire life – with food having this grip on me.
25 patients have had the trial treatment in the US.Getty Images
“Thanks to the procedure, I don’t fixate on food like that any more. It’s like being unchained from food.”
Dr Clifford Weiss of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, who is leading a parallel trial of 64 US patients, said: “The goal here is to make patients healthier in the least invasive way possible.”
The treatment was welcomed by Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, who said the NHS had to look at cheaper, quicker alternatives to bariatric surgery, adding: “Obesity is now such a big problem, we’ve got to think outside the box.”
This story originally appeared on The Sun and has been reproduced here with permission.
Vitamin D is essential for healthy bodies and is actually one of the easiest vitamins to access.
It is obtained by the human body naturally through sunlight but staying indoors can lead to a deficiency and the winter months are also an issue.
The majority of the population will get enough vitamin D through exposure to sunlight and a healthy, balanced diet.
Read more Coventry news
But the lover levels of sunlight between October and early March mean we do not make enough vitamin D from sunlight, so need to get vitamin D from our diet, according to the NHS.
It is estimated that around 20 percent of adults may have low vitamin D status, and there are several main risk factors for vitamin D deficiency.
As far as diet is concerned vitamin D is available in foods such as oily fish, cod liver oil, red meat, fortified cereals, fortified spreads and egg yolks.
In some countries milk is not fortified with vitamin D but this is not the case in the UK.
NHS advice is to take Vitamin D supplements daily between September and March to meet the recommended amount (Image: Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
As such so dairy products contain only small amounts of vitamin D.
A lack of sunlight exposure, darker skin, being housebound, malabsorption, and being pregnant or breastfeeding are risk factors according to the NHS.
Symptoms can include muscle aches and weakness, waddling gait, chronic widespread pain or bone pain in lower back, pelvis and foot.
The Nuneaton-based health food retailer Holland & Barrett says 90 percent of the vitamin D in our bodies needs to come from getting out in the sunlight and only 10 percent is from our diet, the Express reports.
Only a third were aware of the months that you can get Vitamin D from sunlight (Image: Jakub Porzycki/Getty Images)
Its website says: “Even if you eat fortified foods, you could be at risk of vitamin D deficiency. Symptoms of low vitamin D vary from person to person.”
One sign is head sweats, as a common “early sign” of vitamin D deficiency is a sweaty scalp.
The website also lists a number of other signs to be mindful of.
Falling short of the required amount could weaken immune defences, but if low levels are left untreated, discomfort may also arise.
Over supplementation should be avoided
Over-supplementation of vitamin D, however, can also be harmful and should be avoided.
The NHS says taking too many vitamin D supplements over a prolonged period can cause too much calcium to build up in the body which can weaken the bones and damage the kidneys and the heart.
However people cannot overdose on vitamin D through exposure to sunlight.
Vitamin D has been linked positively to coronavirus but the NHS says reports about it reducing the risk of coronavirus are not backed by enough evidence to know whether this is the case.
Covid-19 evidence
“There is currently not enough evidence to support taking vitamin D solely to prevent or treat Covid-19,” it says.
In April 2020, the NHS issued a statement, based on recommendations from Public Health England (PHE), that we should all consider taking 10 mcg a day of vitamin D as a supplement, to keep our bones and muscles healthy.
This advice was issued largely because of the restrictions imposed by quarantine and lockdown.
Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should ask their midwife or health visitor for information around vitamin D intake.
If you or someone you care for is in a higher risk group they may need to take vitamin D supplements.
Vitamin D supplements are widely in pharmacies, other high street stores and supermarkets and can be taken in tablet, liquid or spray form.
Keep up with the latest news with our email alerts directly to your inbox.Sign up here.
