New paper from Cleveland University Hospitals examines transfusion utilization and appropriateness: thinking differently at a tertiary academic medical center

Researchers find decrease in transfusions, increase in appropriate use, and savings of $2.5 million In a new paper, researchers from University Hospitals (UH) detail how they used data via a dashboard to decrease the use of packed red-blood cell (pRBC) transfusions and platelets with an increase in appropriate transfusions.Their paper, “Transfusion Utilization and Appropriateness: Thinking Differently

Read More


Growing US ‘Mortality Gap’ Detected Between Republican and Democratic Counties

A new study highlights how closely connected politics and health outcomes have grown over time. Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital examined mortality rates and federal and state election data for all counties in the U.S. from 2001 to 2019. The team found what they call a “mortality gap” — a widening difference between age-adjusted death rates

Read More


Lifelong calcium and 25-hydroxyvitamin D use may shorten life expectancy and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease: a Karolinska Institute study shows.

Supplementation with calcium and vitamin D, alone or together, leads to increases in serum calcium (S-Ca) concentration with a peak 4 h after each ingestion and a more long-lasting elevation in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (S-25(OH)D), the marker metabolite for vitamin D status. Whether regular calcium supplementation elevates S-Ca after several months of use is debatable

Read More


New cholesterol-lowering guidelines would increase cost of treatment

The financial burden on health systems would drastically increase if new European expert guidelines for cholesterol-lowering treatment were implemented, according to a new simulation study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the European Heart Journal. The findings highlight an urgent need for cost-effectiveness analysis given the current cost of the proposed treatment for

Read More


Buck researchers discover how cellular senescence leads to neurodegeneration

Although a link has been established between chronic inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases, there have been many open questions regarding how cellular senescence, a process whereby cells that stop dividing under stress spew out a mix of inflammatory proteins, affects these pathologies. Publishing in PLOS One, researchers at the Buck Institute report that senescence in astrocytes, the most

Read More


Mapping the Wuhan Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Johns Hopkins CSSE Online Dashboard

Source CSSE Online Dashboard Background On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of an outbreak of “pneumonia of unknown cause” detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China – the seventh-largest city in China with 11 million residents. As of January 23, there are over 800 cases of 2019-nCoV confirmed globally, including cases in

Read More


FDA Announces Key Actions to Advance Development of Novel Coronavirus Medical Countermeasures

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced critical actions to advance development of novel coronavirus medical countermeasures. As with any emerging public health threat, the FDA will collaborate with interagency partners, product developers, international partners and global regulators to expedite the development and availability of medical products needed to diagnose, treat, mitigate and

Read More


Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to fund three programmes to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus, nCoV-2019

CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, today announced the initiation of three programmes to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus, nCoV-2019. The programmes will leverage rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as a new partnership. The aim is to advance nCoV-2019 vaccine candidates into clinical testing as quickly as possible. The

Read More


Higher Omega-3 Index Is Associated with Better Asthma Control and Lower Medication Dose: A Cross-Sectional Study

This study demonstrates that a higher O3I is associated with better asthma control and with lower ICS dose, suggesting that a higher erythrocyte n-3 PUFA level may have a role in asthma management. Source https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/1/74#metrics Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease, associated with systemic inflammation. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) have established anti-inflammatory

Read More