Articles: covid-19.
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During coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), people managing multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) experienced barriers to obtaining needed medications. The purposes of this paper are to (i) determine risk factors for difficulty obtaining medications during COVID-19, (ii) document reasons for the difficulty, and (iii) evaluate the impact on later physical and mental health outcomes. ⋯ People with socioeconomic disadvantages experienced a disproportionate impact of difficulty obtaining medications and poorer health outcomes due to COVID-19. They may be at greater risk in the event of future pandemics and other societal disruptions.
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COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has had a significant impact on global health. While the virus primarily affects the respiratory system, the intricate interplay between immune cells and the virus remains poorly understood. This study investigates the causal relationship between 731 immune cell phenotypes and COVID-19 using Mendelian randomization analysis. ⋯ This study provides compelling evidence for a causal relationship between specific immune cell phenotypes and COVID-19 risk. These findings highlight the potential for targeting these immune cell phenotypes as novel therapeutic targets for COVID-19 treatment and prevention.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Dec 2024
Increase in Acute Cholecystitis and Laparoscopic Resection after COVID-19 Pandemic: A Japanese Single Center Experience.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged as viral pandemic in the year 2019 and surgical intervention was forced to be restricted during the pandemic. This study aims to compare the perioperative outcomes of surgeries for acute cholecystitis in the period following the COVID-19 pandemic. A retrospective analysis was conducted on the demographic and perioperative data of 246 cholecystectomy cases performed between June 2017 and November 2022. ⋯ This increase, particularly in mild and moderate acute cholecystitis cases, led to a significant rise in the proportion of laparoscopic resections and a concurrent decrease in postoperative hospital stays. Our findings suggest a potential increase in acute cholecystitis cases at our hospital coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic. Early laparoscopic cholecystectomy, when feasible within the medical system's capacity, can be an effective treatment strategy during the pandemic.
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Military body fat standards were implemented in the 1980s to prevent obesity and associated poor military readiness. In the past 2 decades, enforcement of existing Army body composition standards has been eroded by the steady increase in national obesity rates, the demand for new recruits especially during the 2007 surge in Iraq, and the COVID epidemic in 2020. The diminishing qualified recruit pool puts a new focus on accession standards. The purpose of accession standards is to ensure that recruits will meet soldier standards, but accession standards have been relaxed to improve recruitment with an assumption that most recruits will achieve the retention standards during initial entry training. A new method of percent body fat estimation (%BF) adopted by the Army in 2024 further liberalizes both accession and retention standards. This study examined the impact of current accession and retention %BF standards on the proportion of the US population that would be disqualified from Army service. ⋯ Army body composition standards are generous, extending to the limits of increased metabolic health risks and providing underestimates of actual %BF based on the behavior of circumference-based methods of body fat estimation. However, current standards do not accurately select or track physical readiness, especially for women, and should be updated. Modernization of physical readiness standards to meet the needs of the Army of 2030 could include adoption of new technologies that directly assess central adiposity, adequate muscle mass, and replace fitness testing with cardiac output metrics. With half of US adults projected to be obese by 2030, it is time for a review of the strategic goals of modernized military readiness standards.