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Research led by the University of Exeter and Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, published in Age and Ageing, assessed a new tool designed to calculate which medicines are more likely to experience adverse anticholinergic effects on the body and brain. These complications can occur from many -prescription and over-the-counter drugs which affects the brain by blocking a key neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Many medicines, including some bladder medications, anti-depressants, medications for stomach and Parkinson’s disease have some degree of anticholinergic effect. They are commonly taken by older people.
Anticholinergic side effects include confusion, blurred vision, dizziness, falls and a decline in brain function. Anticholinergic effects may also increase risks of falls and may be associated with an increase in mortality. They have also been linked to a higher risk of dementia when used long term.
Now, researchers have developed a tool to calculate harmful effects of medicines using artificial intelligence. The team created a new online tool, International Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden Tool (IACT), is uses natural language processing which is an artificial intelligence methdolody and chemical structure analysis to identify medications that have anticholinergic effect.
The tool is the first to incorporate a machine learning technique, to develop an automatically updated tool available on a website portal. The anticholinergic burden is assessed by assigning a score based on reported adverse events and aligning closely with the chemical structure of the drug being considered for prescription, resulting in a more accurate and up-to-date scoring system than any previous system. Ultimately, after further research and modelling with real world patient data the tool developed could help to support prescribing reducing risks form common medicines.
Professor Chris Fox, at the University of Exeter, is one of the study authors. He said:: “Use of medicines with anticholinergic effects can have significant harmful effects for example falls and confusion which are avoidable, we urgently need to reduce the harmful side effects as this can leads to hospitalisation and death. This new tool provides a promising avenue towards a more tailored personalised medicine approach, of ensuring the right person gets a safe and effective treatment whilst avoiding unwanted anticholinergic effects.”
The team surveyed 110 health professionals, including pharmacists and prescribing nurses. Of this group, 85 per cent said they would use a tool to assess risk of anticholinergic side effects, if available. The team also gathered usability feedback to help improve the tool further.
Dr Saber Sami, at the University of East Anglia, said: “Our tool is the first to use innovative artificial intelligence technology in measures of anticholinergic burden — ultimately, once further research has been conducted the tool should support pharmacists and prescribing health professionals in finding the best treatment for patients.”
Professor Ian Maidment, from Aston University, said: “I have been working in this area for over 20 years. Anti-cholinergic side-effects can be very debilitating for patients. We need better ways to assess these side-effects.”
The research team includes collaboration with AKFA University Medical School, Uzbekistan, and the Universities of East Anglia, Aston, Kent and Aberdeen. They aim to continue development of the tool with the aim that it can be deployed in day-to-day practice which this study supports.
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Published1 day agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesA sticky tape skin test could help predict if young babies are likely to develop bad eczema, say scientists. The team – from the University of Copenhagen – used it on a group of two-month-olds to painlessly collect and then examine skin cell samples. They found detectable immune biomarker changes in the cells that were linked with future eczema risk. Babies at high risk might benefit from early treatment with skin creams to avoid painful flare-ups, they suggest. The youngsters with elevated levels of Thymus and Activation-Regulated Chemokine in their skin cells were found to be more than twice as likely to develop atopic eczema by the age of two as other babies in the study.The researchers took sticky tape samples from 450 babies in total. They are presenting their work, which was funded by the Lundbeck Foundation, at a medical conference called the 31st European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology Congress. One of the lead investigators, Dr Anne-Sofie Halling from the Bispebjerg Hospital at the University of Copenhagen, said: “To our knowledge, this is the first to show that non-invasively collected skin biomarkers can be used to predict the subsequent onset and severity of paediatric atopic eczema.”She said there appeared to be an “open window of opportunity” in the first few months, where successful intervention may reduce the risk of atopic eczema. “It is also at this age we were able to identify both immune and lipid biomarkers that predicted the development of atopic eczema. “Our findings of predictive immune and lipid biomarkers collected at two months of age will help identify children at highest risk of atopic eczema using a non-invasive and painless method, so future preventive strategies can target these children only and prevent cases of this common disease that so many children are suffering from.”What is eczema?Eczema causes the skin to become itchy, dry, cracked and sore. It affects about one in five children in the UKThe most common type is called atopic eczema, which often develops alongside other allergy-related conditions such as hay fever and asthmaThe exact cause is unknown but it tends to run in familiesTreatment can help to relieve the symptoms, and many cases improve over timeThere is no cure and severe eczema can have a significant impact on daily lifeEczema: What helps?Eczema: ‘I wanted to rip my skin off’Andrew Proctor, Chief Executive of the National Eczema Society, said: “This exciting study to identify additional biomarkers adds to our understanding of eczema and opens up new possibilities for preventing the condition developing. “This will be welcomed by so many parents and children who suffer severely from this debilitating condition. It is fantastic the researchers were able to use tape strips to gather skin cells for the study, which are non-invasive and easier for patients than some other approaches.”Prof Carsten Flohr of the British Association of Dermatologists said: “While more research needs to be done, it’s possible that with the right advice, parents of at-risk infants could take steps to treat the condition early to minimise its severity when it does occur and, in some cases, even prevent their children from developing the condition in the first place.”More on this story’Some days I wanted to rip my skin off’13 September 2020Related Internet LinksEADV Congress 2022National Eczema SocietyThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Over recent decades, more and more adults under the age of 50 are developing cancer. A study conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital reveals that the incidence of early onset cancers (those diagnosed before age 50), including cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, kidney, liver, and pancreas among others, has dramatically increased around the world, with this drastic rise beginning around 1990. In an effort to understand why many more younger individuals are being diagnosed with cancer, scientists conducted extensive analyses of available data in the literature and online, including information on early life exposures that might have contributed to this trend. Results are published in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.
“From our data, we observed something called the birth cohort effect. This effect shows that each successive group of people born at a later time (e.g., decade-later) have a higher risk of developing cancer later in life, likely due to risk factors they were exposed to at a young age,” explained Shuji Ogino, MD, PhD, a professor and physician-scientist in the Department of Pathology at the Brigham. “We found that this risk is increasing with each generation. For instance, people born in 1960 experienced higher cancer risk before they turn 50 than people born in 1950 and we predict that this risk level will continue to climb in successive generations.”
To conduct this study, Ogino and lead author Tomotaka Ugai, MD, PhD, also of the Department of Pathology, and their colleagues first analyzed global data describing the incidence of 14 different cancer types that showed increased incidence in adults before age 50 from 2000 to 2012. Then, the team searched for available studies that examined trends of possible risk factors including early life exposures in the general populations. Finally, the team examined the literature describing clinical and biological tumor characteristics of early-onset cancers compared to later-onset cancers diagnosed after age 50.
In an extensive review, the team found that the early life exposome, which encompasses one’s diet, lifestyle, weight, environmental exposures, and microbiome, has changed substantially in the last several decades. Thus, they hypothesized that factors like the westernized diet and lifestyle may be contributing to the early-onset cancer epidemic. The team acknowledged that this increased incidence of certain cancer types is, in part, due to early detection through cancer screening programs. They couldn’t precisely measure what proportion of this growing prevalence could solely be attributed to screening and early detection. However, they noted that increased incidence of many of the 14 cancer types is unlikely solely due to enhanced screening alone.
Possible risk factors for early-onset cancer included alcohol consumption, sleep deprivation, smoking, obesity, and eating foods. Surprisingly, researchers found that while adult sleep duration hasn’t drastically changed over the several decades, children are getting far less sleep today than they were decades ago. Risk factors such as highly-processed foods, sugary beverages, obesity, type 2 diabetes, sedentary lifestyle, and alcohol consumption have all significantly increased since the 1950s, which researchers speculate has accompanied altered microbiome.
“Among the 14 cancer types on the rise that we studied, eight were related to the digestive system. The food we eat feeds the microorganisms in our gut,” said Ugai. “Diet directly affects microbiome composition and eventually these changes can influence disease risk and outcomes.”
One limitation of this study is that researchers did not have an adequate amount of data from low- and middle-income countries to identify trends in cancer incidence over the decades. Going forward, Ogino and Ugai hope to continue this research by collecting more data and collaborating with international research institutes to better monitor global trends. They also explained the importance of conducting longitudinal cohort studies with parental consent to include young children who may be followed up for several decades.
“Without such studies, it’s difficult to identify what someone having cancer now did decades ago or when one was a child,” explained Ugai, “Because of this challenge, we aim to run more longitudinal cohort studies in the future where we follow the same cohort of participants over the course of their lives, collecting health data, potentially from electronic health records, and biospecimen at set time points. This is not only more cost effective considering the many cancer types needed to be studied, but I believe it will yield us more accurate insights into cancer risk for generations to come.”
Funding: The work of S.O. is supported in part by the U.S. National Institutes of Health grants (R35 CA197735 and R01 CA248857) and the Cancer Research UK Cancer Grand Challenge Award [6340201/A27140]. The work of T.U. is supported by grants from the Prevent Cancer Foundation, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and Mishima Kaiun Memorial Foundation.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected American households in countless ways, but according to researchers, some of the most tangible shifts are taking place in the food system.
A combination of supply chain issues, tighter budgets, concern about shopping in public spaces, and increases in at-home preparation has led to a greater interest in sourcing food locally, but the question remains how long that interest will last. A team of researchers from Penn State’s Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology and Education conducted a study to find out.
Their results, recently published in the journal Agribusiness, indicate the boon to local food producers may be short-lived, especially if consumers are feeling a sense of anxiety.
“During the pandemic, food consumption changed and so did the sourcing of that food,” said Martina Vecchi, assistant professor of agricultural economics at Penn State and lead author on the study. “A lot of people started exploring different ways of purchasing food and we wanted to understand the determining factors in their decisions.”
Using an online survey, the researchers asked 1,650 participants to reflect on the pandemic and their willingness to buy food locally. Their results suggest that thinking about the pandemic increased anxiety, reduced a sense of community belonging, and lowered the price premiums that respondents were willing to pay for local fruits, vegetables and meat.
“The main mechanism that drives the decreased willingness to pay for locally produced food is anxiety,” Vecchi said. “We didn’t expect this, but managing anxiety might be one of the most important things we can do to protect general health were there to be another health crisis.”
The researchers began the survey by inducing or “priming” a subset of participants to think about the impact of the pandemic on either their personal life, finances and health or on their local community and its members. They found that both prompts or “primes” increased participants’ levels of anxiety, slightly reduced their sense of community, and significantly decreased the hypothetical price premium participants were willing to pay for local food.

Extremely premature infants still face daunting risks of sickness or death, even though advances in neonatal-perinatal care have improved infant survival at progressively lower gestational ages. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia — a serious condition of undeveloped lungs — is a leading morbidity in these tiny infants.
Studies have shown that noninvasive respiratory support at birth — rather than immediate intubation and delivery of lung surfactant — improves short-term respiratory outcomes in premature infants born at gestational age 24 weeks-0 days to 27 weeks-6 days.
So, clinicians at the University of Alabama at Birmingham led by Charitharth Vivek Lal, M.D., and Vivek Shukla, M.D., asked whether the same was true for the tiny newborns at the limits of viability, whom they categorize as “nano-preterm” infants — those born at gestational age 22 weeks-0 days to 23 weeks-6 days. These nano-preterms compose a highly specialized niche subgroup that is considerably more immature and has much higher risks of mortality and morbidity than the 24- through 27-week gestational age preterms, Lal says.
A full-term pregnancy is 39 to 40 weeks.
In one of the largest studies of this population, UAB researchers did a retrospective analysis of 230 consecutively born, eligible nano-preterm infants born from January 2014 through June 2021 at the UAB level IV neonatal intensive care unit. Eighty-eight infants in the noninvasive group were those whose first intubation attempt was more than 10 minutes after birth, and 142 infants in the invasive respiratory support at birth were those intubated within 10 minutes after birth. Unlike in several previous studies of slightly older pre-term infants, Lal and colleagues found no benefits for the noninvasive respiratory support of those nano-preterm infants, as measured by the composite outcome of bronchopulmonary dysplasia or death by 36 weeks postmenstrual age.
Some 94.3 percent of the noninvasive group and 90.9 percent of the invasive group had bronchopulmonary dysplasia or death by 36 weeks, which was not a significant difference. The clinicians did see that severe intraventricular hemorrhage or death by 36 weeks was lower in the invasive respiratory support group, a trend that will require a larger number of infants to confirm.
“This cohort study’s findings suggest that noninvasive respiratory support in the first 10 minutes after birth is feasible but may not be associated with a decrease in the risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia or death compared with intubation and early surfactant delivery in nano-preterm infants,” said Lal, an associate professor in the UAB Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology. Shukla is an assistant professor in the Division of Neonatology.
The average weight of the noninvasive nano-preterm infants was 1 pound 4.4 ounces, and the average weight of the invasive preterm infants was 1 pound 2.4 ounces.
The study, “Hospital and neurodevelopmental outcomes in nano-preterm infants receiving invasive vs noninvasive ventilation at birth,” is published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
Co-authors with Lal and Shukla are Grant Imbrock, Colm P. Travers, Namasivayam Ambalavanan and Waldemar A. Carlo, UAB Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology; and J. Paige Souder, Muhan Hu and A.K.M. Fazlur Rahman, Department of Biostatistics, UAB School of Public Health.
Support came from National Institutes of Health grant HL141652, UAB and Children’s of Alabama.
Pediatrics is a department in the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine at UAB.
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Materials provided by University of Alabama at Birmingham. Original written by Jeff Hansen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The job in the Scottish region of Tayside was eliminated after a groundswell of anger that a man would be overseeing, or ‘mansplaining,’ menstruation education.LONDON — Scotland gained worldwide praise when it passed a pioneering period act, making tampons and pads free by law and instructing schools to make them available in every building. One region even instituted a “period dignity officer.”Then the role was given to a man. The appointment of Jason Grant, a former personal trainer, as the coordinator of the menstruation dignity plan in Scotland’s Tayside region, north of Edinburgh, led to bewilderment and widespread criticism. On Monday, the role was scrapped. “Given the threats and abuse leveled at individuals in recent weeks, the period dignity regional lead officer role will not continue,” a spokeswoman for the Period Dignity Working Group, the team in charge of the initiative, said in a statement. Mr. Grant was hired earlier this summer. The job was heralded as the first of its kind in Scotland when it was announced, and his duties were to include leading a campaign across schools, colleges and the region to raise awareness and understanding of Scotland’s Period Act. The groundbreaking bill came into effect in August, making it compulsory for local authorities and schools to make period items available free of charge. Free tampons and pads had been largely available in different parts of the country, but Scotland is the first country to have a law requiring universal free access. The law did not specifically provide for a role as a “period dignity officer,” but it stated that local authorities could appoint an individual to carry out the duties required by the bill. The role, with a salary of around $40,000 a year, was created by a group of colleges and local authorities in Tayside, as part of a project funded by the Scottish government.Mr. Grant’s job, according to the job posting, was also to ensure that the Scottish government funding was allocated properly. The requirements for employment were “a successful track record of engaging and empowering a large range of people,” including “in particular young people who menstruate.”Before taking up this role, Mr. Grant had also worked for a tobacco company, and as the student well-being officer with Dundee and Angus College, which was among the colleges involved in the hiring process, according to a statement from the Period Dignity Working Group. The group said Mr. Grant had no comment. But in a previous statement, the group had explained, “Employing Jason was a no-brainer” because of his vast experience in project management from both the private and public sectors, “coupled with his passion for making a difference to the people in our community, period!”In the statement, Mr. Grant said he had planned performing arts workshops at schools and colleges to improve education around periods.“I think being a man will help me to break down barriers, reduce stigma and encourage more open discussions,” he said, “Although affecting women directly, periods are an issue for everyone.”Not everyone agreed. “A man shall be mansplaining periods,” Nicola Murray, who runs a support group for women who have lost babies through domestic violence in Scotland wrote on Twitter. “Wonder if he’s ever experienced the horror of a bloodstained dress in public, or the gut-wrenching fear of a missed period? No, didn’t think so,” Susan Dalgety, a newspaper columnist and women’s rights campaigner, wrote on Twitter. The former tennis star Martina Navratilova joined the online backlash. “Does he menstruate?” she wrote. “I somehow doubt it.” Period poverty is a worldwide problem, with at least 500 million women and girls globally who lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for period hygiene management, according to the World Bank, with poor menstrual health and hygiene exacerbating inequalities and hampering education, health, safety and human development. Monica Lennon, a member of the Scottish parliament and the main advocate for the law, said she had talked about Scotland’s model to nonprofits and other governments around the world, and that she hoped Scotland’s example was not overshadowed by the debate around Mr. Grant. She expressed disappointment that such a useful initiative had ended amid anger and hostility. “If we want to tackle stigma and to create culture change that eliminates the embarrassment around periods, then I think we have to have an inclusive approach,”she said, adding that the issue around periods involved mental health and well-being, but also education and the community, and that nobody should be excluded from those conversations. “I’m relaxed about the appointment of men to these roles,” Ms. Lennon said. “They have to live up to their responsibilities too.”

A new Canadian study has found that older people with insomnia are at greater risk of developing memory decline and long-term cognitive impairment such as dementia.
The study, published in the journal SLEEP, is based on data from more than 26,000 participants of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, all aged between 45 and 85. The researchers compared completed self-reported evaluations of sleep and memory and neuropsychological testing in several cognitive domains from 2019 and a follow-up in 2022. Participants who reported worsening sleep quality in that three-year interval also had greater odds of reporting subjective memory decline.
“We found that insomnia specifically was related to worse memory performance compared to those who have some insomnia symptoms alone or no sleep problems at all,” says the study’s co-lead author Nathan Cross, a postdoctoral fellow at the Sleep, Cognition and Neuroimaging Lab. “This deficit in memory was specific, as we also looked at other cognitive function domains such as attention span multi-tasking. We only found differences in memory.”
Jean-Louis Zhao at the Université de Montréal was the study’s co-lead. Lisa Kakinami and Thanh Dang-Vu of the PERFORM Centre contributed to the study, as did Chun Yao and Ronald Postuma from McGill University and Julie Carrier and Nadia Gosselin at UdeM.
Big data and a sharp focus
Unlike previous studies on sleep quality, Cross says, this one benefits from its very large data set and its focus on sleep disorders. Insomnia, he points out, has been classified as a psychological disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the primary reference handbook used by physicians worldwide. Insomnia is not just tossing and turning for a time before bed: “A diagnosis requires symptoms of difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or waking too early three nights a week over a period of three months. Additionally, those with insomnia must report that this sleep problem causes them difficulty in the daytime,” Cross explains.
For this study, the researchers grouped their subjects into one of three categories: those who reported no sleep problems at the 2019 baseline, those who had some insomnia symptoms and those who developed probable insomnia. When they looked at the data from 2022 follow-up, those who had reported a worsening of sleep quality — from no symptoms to some or probable insomnia, or from some symptoms to probable insomnia — were more likely to report memory decline or have it diagnosed by their physician. They were also more likely to show higher prevalence of anxiety, depression, daytime sleepiness, have breathing interruptions during sleep, other sleep-related issues, smoking and a greater body mass index (BMI) score. All of these are considered risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Additionally, the study found that men with insomnia perform worse on memory tests than women, suggesting that older men may be at greater risk.
“However, there is some good news: sleep disorders like insomnia can be treated,” Cross adds. “This highlights the importance of properly diagnosing and managing insomnia as early as possible in older adults. Adequately treating insomnia disorder might become an important preventive measure for cognitive decline and mitigate the incidence of dementia in later life.”
The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, as well as the provinces of Newfound and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia.
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Materials provided by Concordia University. Original written by Patrick Lejtenyi. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

If you are used to getting regular health checkups, you might be familiar with endoscopes. The endoscope is an imaging device consisting of a camera and a light guide attached to a long flexible tube. It is particularly useful for acquiring images of the inside of a human body. For example, stomach and colon endoscopy are widely used for the early detection and diagnosis of diseases such as ulcers and cancers.
In general, an endoscope is manufactured by attaching a camera sensor to the end of a probe or using an optical fiber, which allows for information to be transmitted using light. In the case of an endoscope that uses a camera sensor, the thickness of the probe increases which makes the endoscopy rather invasive. In the case of an endoscope using an optical fiber bundle, it can be manufactured in a thinner form factor, which minimizes invasiveness and results in much less discomfort to the patients.
However, the downside is that in a conventional fiber-bundle endoscope, it is difficult to perform high-resolution imaging, because the resolution of the obtained image is limited by the size of the individual fiber cores. Much of the image information is also lost due to reflection from the probe tip. Furthermore, in fiber endoscopy, it is often necessary to label the target with fluorescence, especially in biological samples with low reflectivity, due to strong back-reflection noise generated from the tip of the thin probe.
Recently, a research team led by CHOI Wonshik, the Associate Director of the Center for Molecular Spectroscopy and Dynamics (CMSD) within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), has developed a high-resolution holographic endoscope system. The researchers were able to overcome the previous limitation of fiber optic endoscopy and were able to reconstruct high-resolution images, without attaching a lens or any equipment to the distal end of the fiber bundle.
This feat was accomplished by measuring the holographic images of the light waves that are reflected from the object and captured by the fiber bundle. The researchers first illuminated an object by focusing light onto a single core of a fiber bundle and measured holographic images that were reflected from the object at a certain distance from the optical fiber. In the process of analyzing the holographic images, it was possible to reconstruct the object image with a microscopic resolution by correcting the phase retardation that occurs by each fiber core. Specifically, a unique coherent image optimization algorithm was developed to eliminate fiber-induced phase retardations in both the illumination and detection pathways and reconstruct an object image with a microscopic resolution.
Since the developed endoscope does not attach any equipment to the end of the optical fiber, the diameter of the endoscope probe is 350 μm, which is thinner than the needle used for hypodermic injection. Using this approach, researchers were able to obtain high-resolution images with a spatial resolution of 850 nm, which is far smaller than the core size of the optical fiber bundle.
The researchers went on to test the new Fourier holographic endoscopy system to image the villi structure of mice. It was possible to acquire high contrast image by effectively removing the back-reflection noise of the probe, even in biological samples with very low reflectivity, such as rat villi. In addition, post-processing of the measured holographic information made it possible to reconstruct multi-depth 3D images from a single data set with a depth resolution of 14 μm.
It is believed that the practical application of this new endoscope will greatly improve the way we can image the internal structures of our body in a minimally invasive manner, with little to no discomfort for patients. It will also open the possibility of directly observing cavities as small as microvessels and the smallest airways in the lungs, which was impossible with preexisting technologies. The researchers even suggested the application of their new endoscope can go well beyond the medical field, as it can potentially be useful for industrial inspections of semiconductors and microprocessors.
This work was published in Nature Communications on August 2, 2022.
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As the Covid-19 pandemic evolves, the issue of post-infection consequences is growing in significance. Does Long Covid impact previously healthy young adults? Although this group is of great societal importance, representing the next generation and the backbone of the workforce, the intermediate-term and long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infections have scarcely been researched in this population. Available original research tends to focus on sufferers who were hospitalized, the elderly or those with multiple morbidities, or restricts evaluations to a single organ system.
Long Covid implications in young Swiss military personnel
A new study, funded by the Swiss Armed Forces, and conducted under the leadership of Patricia Schlagenhauf, Professor at the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute of the University of Zurich (UZH), has now evaluated possible Long Covid implications in young Swiss military personnel. The study, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, was done between May and November 2021 with 29 female and 464 male participants with a median age of 21. 177 participants had confirmed Covid-19 more than 180 days prior to the testing day, and the control group was made up of 251 SARS-CoV-2 serologically negative individuals. Unlike other studies the novel test battery also evaluated cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, ophthalmological, male fertility, psychological and general systems.
Despite overall recovery also sequelae after recent infections remain
The findings show that young, previously healthy, non-hospitalized individuals largely recover from mild infection and that the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on several systems of the body is less than that seen in older, multi-morbid or hospitalized patients. However, the study also provided evidence that recent infections — even mild ones — can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, reduced sense of smell and psychological problems for up to 180 days, as well as having a short-term negative impact on male fertility. For non-recent infections — more than 180 days back — these effects were no longer significant.
Specific constellation carries risk of developing metabolic disorders
For those with non-recent infections, however, the study — which had a long follow-up — provided evidence of a potentially risky constellation: “Increased BMI, high cholesterol and lower physical stamina is suggestive of a higher risk of developing metabolic disorders and possible cardiovascular complications,” says principal investigator Patricia Schlagenhauf. “These results have societal and public-health effects and can be used to guide strategies for broad interdisciplinary evaluation of Covid-19 sequelae, their management, curative treatments, and provision of support in young adult populations.”
Significant landmark study points the way
The study, conducted in collaboration with clinics at the University Hospital Zurich and Spiez Laboratory, is novel in that it quantitatively evaluated multi-organ function using a sensitive, minimally invasive test battery in a homogenous group of people several months after a Covid-19 infection. A valuable facet of the study was the control group, serologically confirmed to have had no SARS-CoV-2 exposure. “This combination of a unique test battery, a homogenous cohort and a control group make this a very powerful, landmark study in the evidence base on Long Covid in young adults,” says Schlagenhauf.
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Due to the uncertainty of the timing of vaccine approval at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers struggled to find the best mitigation measures. In a new study, researchers analyzed how the expectation of a vaccine influences optimal lockdown measures.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in early 2020, countries varied greatly in the measures they applied to limit the spread of the disease. Policymakers could not implement a lockdown strategy that was optimal in the long term, as they did not know when the vaccine would be developed. While the lockdowns were successful in reducing infections and saving lives, they had severe negative impacts on the economy, as well as putting a strain on the mental and social wellbeing of the population. Determining the most effective lockdown strategy in the context of vaccine development is therefore important not only for the current pandemic, but also for any other pandemics that may arise in the future.
In a new study published in PLOS ONE, researchers from the University of Padua and IIASA analyzed how the expectation of a vaccine changes the optimal policy measures and how these policy measures should be changed at the time of the approval of the vaccine. The researchers compared lockdown strategies and vaccination rollout in Germany, Israel, and the United States. While all three countries are highly developed and had the financial means to afford the necessary vaccine doses, their vaccination strategies, and their adaptation of policy measures at the time of the vaccine approval, were very different. While Israel’s campaign was probably implemented in the shortest time, resulting in a short intensification followed by an early relaxation of mitigation measures, Germany and the United States struggled with a couple of problems resulting in the slower relaxation of lockdowns.
To gain some insight into the best possible strategy, the researchers used the Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered (SIR) model, which is commonly used in epidemiology studies, and introduced the lockdown intensity and the vaccine arrival time as variables.
“Other studies on this subject usually assume either a finite or infinite time horizon with exact knowledge about the approval time of the vaccine,” says study coauthor Stefan Wrzaczek, a researcher in the IIASA Economic Frontiers Program. “As this is seldom the case in reality, in our study we assume the vaccine approval time to be unknown.”
The researchers found that the expectation of a vaccine leads to stricter lockdowns aiming to hold back infections before the vaccine is available, since a vaccine that is expected to be approved will allow susceptible people to surpass the infection. They also found that lockdowns continued to intensify for a short time after the approval of the vaccine, until a sufficient percentage of the population was vaccinated, thereby protecting the country’s healthcare capacity from being overloaded.
“The study not only helps us to better understand the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic but could also help policymakers mitigate the effect of new virus variants or novel pandemics in a way that will better balance the pressures on human health, wellbeing, and the economy,” concludes Michael Freiberger, a study coauthor associated with the same program at IIASA.
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