What do Streptococcus pyogenes, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Acinetobacter baumannii have in common? These are three of 10 bacteria that doctors are worried about, because they are becoming more resistant to antibiotics. S. pyogenes is a deadly virus that can causes sore throat and scarlet fever. It’s got a 25-percent mortality rate. N. gonorrhoeae causes gonorrhea, which has become one of the STDs on the rise, and A. baumannii was prevalent in injured soldiers during the Iraq war, causing pneumonia and meningitis.
Alongside climate change, antibiotic-resistant infections are arguably the biggest threat to human life, because under the right circumstances, a completely healthy individual can die from something as innocent as an infected scratch or a sore throat. …
On July 21, 1976, the year of America’s bicentennial, the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Legion decided to kick off their four-day convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, known as the “Grand Dame of Broad Street.”
Early August, news circulated that close to 50 people from the convention were sick with some mysterious flu-like illness, which caused diarrhea, chest pain, muscle aches, and fever of 104 degrees and higher. Twelve had already died, and the Bellevue-Stratford was the common link between them.
As time went on, more cases of the same type of sickness came forward, but these people didn’t attend the event. One was a bus driver, while another was a bank teller, and neither were guests at the hotel at the time. Fears rose on rumors of a possible flu pandemic, like the one that killed millions a few decades earlier. But, this couldn’t be another Spanish Flu, because it didn’t seem contagious based on the fact that one military veteran shared a room with two other Legion members who died, but he had no symptoms. …
California is going to phase in later school start times over the next three years, until 2023, when high schools will start no earlier than 8:30 am. This law doesn’t affect those early-bird classes that students opt-in for, so for those, it’s business as usual.
Some hail the move as a compassionate move that helps with what is a “public health crisis” of sleep-deprived teenagers. …
Yes, I’m young compared to the average age of 51 years, but it was not unexpected considering the health situation I had in my early thirties, which I will discuss in some later post. What is unexpected is that I’m not having the hellish time that my mother did. My symptoms are mild to moderate, at most, but it’s the invisible changes in my body that have made me take another look at how to navigate this transition.
Going through menopause can be a challenging time, and for a significant number of women, their bodies and minds need proper help and support for the duration. Synthetic estrogen and progesterone hormones have been around since the 1940’s and, thanks to the Marker Degradation process, they are now an integral part of human growth and development. …
It seems that menopause is a serious discussion that’s been floating around, especially since a 73-year-old woman in India gave birth to twins in September 2019. There are plenty of moral and social discussions related to women’s reproductive lifespan, which I won’t discuss, but when it comes to men and the endpoint of their reproduction, there is some talk about andropause, commonly known as male menopause. I wanted to flesh that idea out and put it into some context. Is there such a thing as andropause? If so, what exactly does it entail?
For women, it’s the time when the door starts to slowly close on her ability to produce eggs and reproduce. Menstruation peters, egg production slows to the point and then stops, and within this transition is a lot of struggle. Doctors have listed some 30+ symptoms that women endure during this time. Some of the most prominent…
Tobacco has a very powerful history in the US, especially in Kentucky and West Virginia. It was the cash crop that, in the early 1600’s, made English plantation owners, such as John Rolfe (husband of Pocahontas), in the Virginias and Carolinas, wealthy enough to begin importing black slaves.
In the 21st century, tobacco companies still wield a lot of power in many states, such as West Virginia and Kentucky, which is why those two have the highest rates of smokers in general and among women in particular.
Tobacco companies spend about $25 million a day advertising tobacco products. While there are people who want to quit smoking, less than two million dollars a year to fund anti-smoking initiatives in both Kentucky and West Virginia cannot compete with an industry that’s worth north of $800 billion and can shell out over $1 million an hour to advertise their products. …
I was looking over some data for a project when something caught my eye:
You can’t help by notice how California and Florida estimates are running away from the other states. Of course, my first question was, why them? what do they have in common?
Sure, Florida is a retiree haven, just check out The Golden Girls, while California is…California. Other than being coastal states that were in the top five list of the most populous states in the union, why would each experience a surge of 160,000+ new Alzheimer cases by 2025?
That was when I dug a little deeper and found out just how complex the story was. …
When looking at this graph, what do you notice? I’ll tell you the first thing I noticed.
All are African countries.
Somalia is one of the most devastating places for children. The history of the country goes all the way to the Paleolithic period. But modern history has seen it become relatively unstable with both cold and live wars, rendering the infrastructure a deadly challenge to its people. For every 1,000 live births, 13.7 percent of those children die. The reasons range from malnutrition, lack of sanitation that leads to diseases, and the presence of diseases that were eradicated in developing and developed countries, such as polio.
There is so much that’s broken about the health system in the country and the children seem to be the ones paying dearly for that, even before they are born.
The Borgen Project: https://borgenproject.org/child-mortality-rate-in-somalia/
For 2019, Spain is considered the healthiest country, followed by Italy. Canada made the top 20 at 16, while the United Kingdom came in at 19.
There are several factors that are used to tabulate the health grade, which the difference between the health score and health risks, such as:
2016 data on Spanish life expectancy shows an average life expectancy comes in at about 82.8 years, while the U.K. and U.S. average about 80.96 and 78.69 years, respectively.
In 2016, over 80 percent of the deaths were of those 70 years and older. While Spain did see a rise is some causes, such as certain cancers and chronic kidney disease, incidents of road injuries dropped from 4th leading cause of death to number 16, and diabetes moved to position 10 from 6. …