27 May 2020
WEDNESDAY, May 27, 2020 (American Heart Association News) -- Chris Dier understands how trauma can follow you for a lifetime.
In 2005, he was entering his senior year of high school, looking forward to a year of making memories at Andrew Jackson High in Chalmette, Louisiana. Then, disaster struck. Twice.
First, a car crash killed three friends. Two weeks later, Hurricane Katrina hit.
He and his family got out in time. But the storm drowned his home in 13 feet of water, leaving his neighborhood a mess of toppled trees and abandoned cars, and severing him from the life he'd known.
"I remember feeling a deep sadness, and a deep sense of loss," he said. "Losing people in your community. Losing the community feeling. Losing your senior year. Losing connection with so many people."
Dier, now...
27 May 2020
WEDNESDAY, May 27, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Women who had COVID-19 while pregnant showed evidence of placental injury, suggesting a new complication of the illness, researchers say.
The good news from the small study of 16 women is that "most of these babies were delivered full-term after otherwise normal pregnancies," said study senior author Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein. He's assistant professor of pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
However, signs of reduced blood flow in the placentas of women infected with the new coronavirus does have doctors concerned.
Right now, COVID-19 injury to the placenta "doesn't appear to be inducing negative outcomes in live-born infants, based on our limited data, but it does validate the idea that women with COVID...
26 May 2020
TUESDAY, May 26, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- When bike-sharing services open in cities, more people start to commute by bicycle and take public transit, new research shows.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, bike commuting had increased by 20% in cities where bike-share systems were introduced, according to study author Dafeng Xu, assistant professor of public policy and governance at the University of Washington in Seattle.
His analysis of 38 U.S. cities found increased commuting by bike and decreased commuting by car between 2008 and 2016 -- but the rate of bike commuting and public transportation use was greater in bike-share cities.
In 2008, about 66% of commuters drove to work, about 1% biked and 22% used transit in bike-share cities. In 2016, rates were 59% for driving to work, 1.7%...
26 May 2020
TUESDAY, May 26, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) youth who die by suicide are five times more likely to have been bullied than their straight counterparts.
The finding stems from a review of nearly 10,000 U.S. death records for 2003 to 2017. All of the youth were between 10 and 19 years of age when they took their own lives.
While LGBTQ youth are more likely to be bullied and report suicidal thoughts than their straight peers, researchers said this study may be the first to show that bullying is a more common precursor to suicide among LGBTQ people.
"Clear and consistent evidence shows that LGBTQ youth are more likely to experience bullying -- including in-person bullying and cyberbullying -- than their heterosexual and cisgender...