Clues Archives - Mediarabe

In information vacuum, experts say Trump’s steroid treatment may hold clues to health status

October 5, 2020

Details of President Donald Trump’s health remained largely unclear on Monday after a weekend of ambiguous and at times conflicting prognoses from his medical staff and senior advisers.

But the combination of drugs physicians have administered to the president – in particular, the decision to use a steroid called dexamethasone – may offer insights into his status, experts said.

“They are doing things for him that would imply he has more severe disease than they are saying,” said Dr. Michael Niederman, a critical care physician at New York-Presbyterian who has not been involved in the president’s treatment.

Dr. Sean Conley, the president’s personal physician, said Saturday that the ailing commander in chief was supplied an experimental antibody cocktail and an FDA authorized antiviral treatment called remdesivir, which is available to hospitalized COVID-19 patients. On Sunday, Conley said a third drug had been added to the mix: the steroid dexamethasone.

Steroids

Medieval Latrines Hold Clues About Intestinal Health in Europe and Middle East

October 4, 2020

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Wooden latrine from medieval Riga, Latvia. (Credit: Uldis Kalejs)

(CN) — Researchers digging through the contents of two medieval latrines have turned up new information about the intestinal health of ancient communities in what is now Europe and the Middle East, according to a new study released Sunday.

The findings provide rare insight into the microbiomes of pre-industrial, agriculture-based communities and could help contemporary scientists better interpret the microbial diversity in nations around the world, researcher Piers Mitchell of Cambridge University said in a statement attached to the study.

“These latrines gave us much more representative information about the wider pre-industrial population of these regions than an individual faecal sample would have,” Mitchell said. “Combining evidence from light microscopy and ancient DNA analysis allows us to identify the amazing variety of organisms present in the intestines of our ancestors who lived centuries ago.”

Prior research has established that microbiomes —

Immune system holds clues to virus reaction

October 1, 2020

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One of COVID-19’s scariest mysteries is why some people are mildly ill or have no symptoms and others rapidly die — and scientists are starting to unravel why.

An international team of researchers found that in some people with severe COVID-19, the body goes rogue and attacks one of its own key immune defenses instead of fighting the coronavirus. Most were men, helping to explain why the virus is hitting men harder than women.

And separate research suggests that children fare better than adults thanks to robust “first responder” immune cells that wane with age.

They’re the latest in a list of studies uncovering multiple features of the immune system’s intricate cascade that can tip the scales between a good or bad outcome. Next up: Figuring out if all these new clues might offer much-needed ways to intervene.

“We have the knowledge and capability of really boosting many aspects of

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