Tag: Easy

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Health

A Frequent Coronary heart Downside That’s Straightforward to Miss

A Common Heart Problem That’s Easy to Miss

Longer term, most patients with A-fib can be effectively and safely treated with medication, usually drugs called beta blockers and calcium blockers that help the heart sustain a normal rhythm. Patients are also given an anticoagulant to prevent blood clots.

Several currently popular anticoagulants, including Xarelto (rivaroxaban), which Mr. Hallick takes, have persistent anti-clotting effects even if patients miss a dose or two, which may help to avert a stroke. These anticoagulants also do not require close repeated monitoring of their effects on clotting, unlike their predecessor Coumadin (warfarin), which was for many years the leading anticoagulant to treat A-fib. Coumadin has one important advantage over the newer medications of an almost immediate reversal of its anti-clotting effect when patients must stop taking it to prevent excessive bleeding, say, before surgery or following an injury.

Yes, that’s what happened with Mr. Hallick. He was doing well on medication for seven years until May, when a routine checkup revealed that, unbeknown to him, his A-fib had recurred and his heart was beating 165 times a minute, about double the normal rate.

“I had been getting a little out of breath and finding it harder to walk uphill, but I wrote it off,” he recalled. “I thought I’m now 70 and maybe really out of shape thanks to the pandemic.”

A medication change and two shocks to try to restore a normal heart rhythm helped only briefly, and Mr. Hallick has just undergone a procedure that promises a more lasting benefit: destruction of the cells along the back wall of his heart’s left atrium that are transmitting erratic signals to the ventricles. The procedure, called ablation, involves snaking a catheter through a vein into the atrium and usually either burning or freezing the cells that misfire.

Controlled trials have shown that over time, ablation is significantly more effective in correcting A-fib than drug therapy. In one recent study of 203 patients, ablation successfully prevented A-fib a year later in about 75 percent of patients in one group, whereas drug therapy helped only 45 percent of the patients in the other. In otherwise healthy people like Mr. Hallick, ablation often can be done as an outpatient procedure, followed by a few days of limited activity while the heart heals from resulting inflammation.

Dr. Stevenson of Vanderbilt said some patients with persistent A-fib prefer to undergo ablation rather than continually taking medications, which can cause bleeding problems or other side effects. On the other hand, the benefit of ablation is sometimes delayed. In the first few months after ablation, he said, about half of patients experience abnormal heart rhythms and may require a cardiac shock or drug treatment until the heart fully recovers from the procedure.

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Health

A Covid Take a look at as Simple as Respiration

A Covid Test as Easy as Breathing

People with diabetes, for instance, may have breath that smells fruity or sweet. The odor is caused by ketones, chemicals produced when the body begins to burn fat instead of glucose for energy, a metabolic state known as ketosis.

“The idea that exhaled breath could hold diagnostic potential has been around for some time,” Dr. Davis said. “There are reports in ancient Greek and also ancient Chinese medical training texts that reference a physician’s use of smell as a way to help guide their clinical practice.”

Modern technologies can detect more subtle chemical changes, and machine learning algorithms can identify patterns in breath samples from people with certain diseases. In recent years, scientists have used these methods to identify unique “breathprints” for lung cancer, liver disease, tuberculosis, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease and other conditions. (Dr. Davis and her colleagues have even used V.O.C. profiles to distinguish among cells that had been infected with different strains of flu.)

Before Covid hit, Breathomix had been developing an electronic nose to detect several other respiratory diseases. “We train our system, ‘OK, this is how asthma smells, this how lung cancer smells,” said Rianne de Vries, the company’s chief technology and scientific officer. “So it’s building a big database and finding patterns in big data.”

Last year, the company — and many other researchers in the field — pivoted and began trying to identify a breathprint for Covid-19. During the virus’s initial surge in the spring of 2020, for instance, researchers in Britain and Germany collected breath samples from 98 people who showed up at hospitals with respiratory symptoms. (Participants were asked to exhale into a disposable tube; the researchers then used a syringe to extract a sample of their breath.)

Thirty-one of the patients turned out to have Covid, while the remainder had a variety of diagnoses, including asthma, bacterial pneumonia or heart failure, the researchers reported. The breath samples from people with Covid-19 had higher levels of aldehydes, compounds produced when cells or tissues are damaged by inflammation, and ketones, which fits with research suggesting that the virus may damage the pancreas and cause ketosis.

The Covid patients also had lower levels of methanol, which could be a sign that the virus had inflamed the gastrointestinal system or killed the methanol-producing bacteria that live there. Those breath changes combined “give us a Covid-19 signal,” said Dr. Thomas, a co-author of the study.

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Health

A U.N. Declaration on Ending AIDS Ought to Have Been Simple. It Wasn’t.

A U.N. Declaration on Ending AIDS Should Have Been Easy. It Wasn’t.

The United Nations on Tuesday adopted new targets for ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, a target that most countries could seemingly easily agree to. But consensus was elusive.

In early negotiations on what is known as the Political Declaration, the United States and the European Union fought to outlaw policies and laws that stigmatize or even criminalize high-risk groups – and drastically scaled back measures to relax patent protection for HIV drugs .

The UN Declaration sets priorities for the global fight against AIDS and guides national policy. There are also opportunities for global health groups and civil society organizations to put pressure on governments to honor their commitments.

After several days of intensive work by delegates from some countries and skilful negotiations by others, the member countries adopted a final version of the declaration on Tuesday morning. The final draft includes an important new goal of having most nations reform discriminatory laws so that less than 10 percent of the world’s countries would take action that unfairly targets people at risk of or living with HIV

“These laws drive the most severely affected by HIV away from HIV prevention and treatment,” said Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown University. “This could be a vital tool to get the world back on track to end AIDS.”

On Monday, Dr. Kavanagh and colleagues have a new piece of work showing that countries that criminalize same-sex relationships, drug use, and sex work have had far less success in fighting HIV

But the declaration does not move the needle to patent protection. The United States was among the nations whose delegates significantly watered down or shortened the language to relax patents to provide better access to affordable HIV medicines in low and middle income countries, an attitude endorsed by the Biden government directly contradicted patent waiver for Covid vaccines.

“The mixed messages from the government in the face of recent support for the waiver of Covid-19 vaccine patents are confusing and disappointing,” said Annette Gaudino, director of policy at the Treatment Action Group, an advocacy group in New York. “This would by far not be the first time the US has put drug company profits above people and public health.”

The UN brings together heads of state, health ministers and non-governmental organizations to set priorities for the fight against the HIV pandemic every five years. At a similar meeting in 2016, member countries agreed to aim for less than 500,000 new HIV infections per year, less than 500,000 AIDS-related deaths and the eradication of HIV-related discrimination by 2020.

The world did not achieve these goals: in 2020 around 1.5 million people became infected with HIV and around 690,000 died.

Ending AIDS by 2030 was an ambitious goal adopted by the UN in 2015 as part of a broader agenda for sustainable development. But without more advanced policies and laws, the goal is not achievable, said Dr. Kavanagh.

“To end AIDS by 2030, governments must commit to taking a people-centered, rights-based approach to HIV, working on policy and legal reform, engaging and supporting communities, and ending inequalities,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director from executive UNAIDS said in an email statement.

The original draft of the April 28 statement included a commitment to end “criminal laws, policies and practices, stigma and discrimination based on HIV status, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Delegates from a few countries, including the Africa Group, China, Russia and Iran, tried to erase allusions to sexual or gender identity or to sex education for girls. This has only partially succeeded: the current text calls for prevention approaches that are tailored to risk groups, including sex workers, men who have sex with men, drug users and transgender people.

Delegates from African countries have successfully inserted a language in which they reaffirm “the sovereign rights of member states” and emphasize that the commitments in the declaration would be implemented “in accordance with national laws, national development priorities and international human rights”. About half of the countries where homosexuality is illegal are in Africa.

The declaration in its current form also calls on countries to “empower women and girls to take care of their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” a section that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the Holy See attempted remove the text.

Representatives from Belarus, China and Russia also deleted a section calling on member countries to recognize citizens’ autonomy in matters of sexuality; its replaced text encouraged “responsible sexual behavior, including abstinence and fidelity”. The final document has been reverted to the original text.

Including language through high-risk groups is critical to success, some experts said. Gays and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, and female sex workers are almost 30 times more likely to have HIV than the general population.

If these groups don’t have access to preventive therapy, clean needles, condoms, or education, “we will undermine the possibility of actually ending AIDS by 2030,” said Eric Sawyer, an advocate for people living with HIV and long-term survivors.

An early draft of the declaration also contained a longer section aimed at relaxing patent protection. Under the current global rules, only the 50 least developed countries are allowed to delete patents on pharmaceutical products in order to distribute them to citizens.

The draft called for “an indefinite moratorium on international intellectual property regulations for drugs, diagnostics and other health technologies”. Representatives from the United States and Switzerland deleted this section. A representative from the European Union said: “This is not the place to discuss these general issues.”

The United States also added language to the reduced version to recognize the “importance of the intellectual property rights regime in contributing to a more effective AIDS response.”

Activists said an anti-patent waiver stance was perfectly consistent for the European Union, which also spoke out against waiving patents on Covid vaccines. Vaccine manufacturers have argued that patent protection is essential to fuel innovation.

Citing the urgent need for vaccines, however, Biden government officials have said they would support a patent waiver that would allow companies to manufacture cheaper versions of the vaccines for the rest of the world.

Given this trend, “it would be really inconsistent” for the US to oppose a relaxation of patent protection for HIV drugs, said Brook Baker, law professor at Northeastern University and senior policy analyst with the Health Global Access Project, an advocacy group.

“Why in the world should the US be talking on a seemingly almost identical subject from two sides of the mouth?”

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Politics

Georgia’s Election Legislation, and Why Turnout Isn’t Simple to Flip Off

Georgia’s Election Law, and Why Turnout Isn’t Easy to Turn Off

A simple answer is that convenience isn’t as important as is often thought. Almost anyone who cares enough about voting will face the inconvenience of personal voting, whether because the inconvenience is not really that great or because they worry enough to suffer it.

This, of course, requires a degree of convenience: six-hour lines would change the calculation for many voters. Indeed, long lines affect voter turnout. A certain amount of interest is also assumed. Someone might think: there is no way I am waiting in line for half an hour to vote for the dog catcher. Similarly, as the importance of a race declines, the importance of a convenient set-up option is likely to grow.

The implication, however, is that if enough convenient options are available, almost anyone can vote, even if the most preferred option does not exist. That makes the Georgian electoral law’s efforts to stem long lines potentially quite significant. Not only could this mitigate the already limited effect of restricting email reconciliation, but even outweigh it.

Another reason is that convenience voting may not be as convenient for lower turnout voters who essentially decide the overall turnout. Low turnout voters are unlikely to think about how they will vote a month before the election if they have to request a postal vote. Someone to think about it is likely a high turnout voter. Low turnout voters may not know who they will be supporting until election day. And that makes them less likely to use pre-voting options like a no-excuse early vote, which requires them to think about the choice early and often: submit a motion, fill out a ballot, and send it back.

As a result, convenience voting methods tend to reinforce socio-economic biases in favor of voters with high turnout. The methods ensure that every highly interesting voter has many choices without doing quite so much to attract less engaged voters to the election.

A final reason is that electoral restrictions can backfire by annoying and energizing democratic voters. For example, this law’s restrictions on the distribution of water in a line can do more to mobilize democrats than keep them from voting. A recent study even theorized that the Supreme Court’s decision to withdraw elements of the electoral law did not reduce black voter turnout as subsequent efforts to restrict voting were quickly thwarted by efforts to mobilize black voters.

This does not mean that Georgian law or other so-called voter suppression laws have no consequences. Many make voting difficult enough to intimidate or discourage some voters. Many eligible voters are completely disenfranchised, even if only in small numbers. Perhaps the disenfranchisement of a single voter deserves outrage and opposition, especially when the law is passed for dubious or even contrived reasons and the mass disenfranchisement of Jim Crow serves as a historical backdrop.

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World News

GDP development goal over 6% is straightforward to succeed in, analysts say

GDP growth target over 6% is easy to reach, analysts say

China’s target of more than 6% growth for 2021 isn’t very telling as it’s easy to achieve – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, analysts told CNBC this week.

“It’s almost the same as having no growth target there because it’s so easy to get to,” said Michael Hirson, head of the Eurasia Group for China and Northeast Asia.

Simon Baptist, chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), echoed the same sentiment.

“It will be easy to get to,” he told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Thursday. “It’s kind of a goal that you have when you don’t really want a goal.”

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced last week that the country is targeting economic expansion of more than 6% this year. He spoke at the opening ceremony of the National People’s Congress in China.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday evening, at the end of the annual parliamentary session, Li said China’s target is not low. The 2021 target should be the same as 2022 to avoid large swings, he said.

“By setting the GDP growth target above 6%, we have left options open, which means that there may be even faster growth in actual delivery,” said the Prime Minister.

The EIU predicts China’s growth will be 8.5% this year, more than 2 percentage points higher than the official target, Baptist said.

Focus on quality

To be clear, having an easy-to-achieve goal isn’t pointless, analysts said.

Eurasia’s Hirson said this was in line with China’s desire to put quality over quantity.

“It brings a message home to local authorities and the rest of the system: don’t strive for growth goals, focus on the quality of growth, and I think that’s spot on,” he told CNBC’s Street on Thursday Signs Asia “.

Additionally, he noted that the country’s five-year plan does not have an average growth target, showing “persistent de-emphasis on reaching rigid” numbers.

Baptist from the EIU said previous growth targets have historically created “dangerous imbalances in the Chinese economy”, including debt accumulation, as the country pushed certain sectors to meet these “very ambitious goals”.

However, with the number low for 2021, these issues are unlikely to be fueled any further, he added.

“Indeed, the fact that it is so far below what China is likely to achieve only at a gallop shows that China’s economic policy will be a little tight and that fiscal and monetary support will decline,” he said.

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Health

To Begin a New Behavior, Make It Straightforward

To Start a New Habit, Make It Easy

Organize your fridge. The turning point in a kitchen is often the refrigerator. When your fridge is messed up, it’s hard to know what you have available to cook, what foods are about to spoil, and what you need from the store. Wirecutter has the best advice on organizing refrigerators from Marguerite Preston, a former pastry chef who knows how professional chefs organize a kitchen. “Organization is important in restaurants not only because it helps chefs move quickly and smoothly, but also because wasted food is a waste of money,” she writes. “This also applies to at home. You may not see the effects of a messy refrigerator in a bad Yelp review or balance sheet, but it will show in the time it takes to cook your dinner and the stress that comes with it. “

Watch the jellyfish. One of the best mindfulness tips I came across this year was Cord Jefferson, the television writer who thanked his therapist on national television when he won an Emmy. Mr. Jefferson told me he was struggling with traditional meditation, but he enjoyed watching the feed from a webcam showing the jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Bookmark the jellyfish camera on your phone or laptop and lose yourself in the jellyfish for a brief mindful break during your work day.

Do the standing 7-minute workout. All you need is a wall and a chair close by for balance. You don’t even have to change. Our new training video is a smooth workout for anyone who refrains from moving because it is difficult to get up from the floor after a push-up, plank or sit-up.

Do a 1-minute task. One of my favorite health tips for dealing with stress is the one minute rule. It’s by Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before, a book about building new habits. This simple piece of advice will help you decide what to tackle on a long to-do list. First, complete the one-minute tasks. Hang up a coat. Read some emails. Clear the kitchen counter and wipe it down. Arrange a bookshelf. Whenever you take on a one-minute task, you get a sense of accomplishment and a quick burst of happiness.

Do five-finger meditation. That is a easy way to calm down no matter where you are. (I tried it in a dentist’s chair and it worked for me!) First, hold your hand in front of you with your fingers spread apart. On the other hand, start using your index finger to draw the outline of your hand. Track your pinky and down. Trace your ring finger up and down. Inhale as you sense and exhale as you sense. Continue finger by finger until you’ve traced your entire hand. Now reverse the process and trace from your thumb back to your little finger. Be sure to breathe in as you track and breathe out when you track. For more tips on overcoming stress, see my story “Peak Anxiety? Here are 10 ways to calm yourself down. “

Create a Sunday basket. I learned this tip from Lisa Woodruff, author of The Paper Solution. She suggests throwing your bills, receipts, and various papers in one basket. (She sells a product for it, but I only use a regular basket.) Once a week, sort your recyclable papers (the ones that need attention) from your archival papers (the ones that can be filed). The Sunday basket approach (she claims) this adds an extra five hours to your week. This is part of a larger system proposed by Ms. Woodruff that uses three-ring folders in place of a filing cabinet. (She suggests five folders for financial information, medical needs, household information, school supplies, and day-to-day operations.) The Sunday Basket is fine for me, but if you’re chronically overwhelmed by paper, you can visit Organize365.com to learn more.

Buy partially prepared foods. Buying chopped foods and meal sets costs more but saves time. “I used to always avoid buying sliced ​​fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, but I’ve found that I actually use them sooner. So it pays off in the end,” said Dr. Wood.