Month: November 2020

TTHealthWatch is a weekly podcast from Texas Tech. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, look at the top medical stories of the week. A transcript of the podcast is below the summary. This

With most Americans in favor of legalized marijuana — and a growing number of states making the drug legal — how long before recreational pot becomes available across the US? Making marijuana legal has been a grassroots effort. Support has come from the ground up, and the laws have generally changed, not in the state

Three specific symptoms may help clinicians identify patients with borderline personality disorders (BPD) at highest risk for suicide. Results of a large longitudinal study show patients with BPD are at considerably higher risk of suicide attempts compared to patients with other personality disorders including schizotypal, avoidant, and obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). Furthermore, among DSM-5

Getting caught without a pad or a tampon outside the home is par for the course for lots of women. Ducking into a pharmacy or other store to get what’s needed is also run of the mill for them. But for women without financial resources, access to sanitary products isn’t always possible. At Target, for

When an 86-year-old male patient presented to Nishi Chandrasekaran, MBBS, at the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, he initially complained of impaired memory and concentration as well as some olfactory and gait problems “Initially that was it. So we talked about these issues together and I suggested a few treatments, but

WASHINGTON — Once he is inaugurated, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to adhere to a pro-choice agenda and reverse many of the anti-abortion policies implemented by the Trump administration — a prospect that pro-choice groups are looking forward to seeing and pro-life groups are dreading. On his campaign website, Biden listed a number of goals

One reason glioblastoma — an aggressive brain cancer that affects more than 13,000 new people a year in the US — is so deadly is that no tests are available to guide treatment or predict its outcome. However, researchers at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) have developed a new laboratory test that can “accurately pinpoint, capture

Although the incidence of stroke is increasing steadily among young adults, the incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains stable, a new analysis suggests. This finding raises the question of whether cardiovascular risk factors are the main cause of the increasing incidence of stroke among younger people, said the researchers. “It has been a mystery

Although Thanksgiving, and the holidays that follow, might be billed as a time of indulgence — with creamy pumpkin pie, buttery rolls and plenty of egg nog — a little indulgence might not be a bad idea. Instead of trying to lose weight or being “good” this year, experts suggest taking care of yourself, even

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval for a new drug for certain patients with neuroblastoma based on response rate results in small open-label trials. The drug is naxitamab (Danyelza, Y-mAbs Therapeutics), a humanized monoclonal antibody that targets GD2 3F8, a disialoganglioside highly expressed on neuroblastomas. The product was originally developed at the

Preterm babies had a higher chance of subsequent childhood hospitalization than those born at term, according to a population-based cohort study. Infants born extremely early — less than 28 weeks’ gestation — were nearly five times as likely to be admitted to the hospital through age 7-10 than those born at term (adjusted rate ratio