Monoclonal antibodies have been an effective tool in the battle against COVID-19, reducing the risk of hospitalization or death by 39% for people who started the treatment within two days of a positive test, a new study finds. These treatments were even more effective for immunocompromised people, regardless of age, according to the University of Pittsburgh researchers. “The virus was a moving target, and, for two years, monoclonal antibodies were approved, revoked, sometimes reauthorized and sometimes scarce,” said Kevin Kip, lead author of a new analysis and vice president of clinical analytics at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). “Using UPMC’s database of patients treated with monoclonal antibodies — one of the largest in the U.S. — we are finally able to conclude that pushing through all these challenges unequivocally saved lives and prevented hospitalizations,” Kip said in a university news release. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization to five monoclonal antibodies between 2020 and 2022. These human-made antibodies were designed to prevent the virus from entering human cells where they could replicate and cause serious illness. Those used for COVID-19 were administered intravenously or through an injection. They were restricted to people aged 12 and older with risk factors that made them more susceptible to bad outcomes from the virus. As the virus evolved, so did the antibodies, with new…  read on >  read on >

A good night’s sleep is important for everyone, and it may be especially sage advice for adults with a genetic susceptibility to asthma, a new study says. Someone with poor sleep quality and a genetic link to asthma may double their chances of being diagnosed with the respiratory condition, researchers said. But they found a healthy sleep pattern was linked to lower risk, according to a report based on U.K. participants in the journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research. “Previous studies have demonstrated that sleep disorders, such as unfavorable sleep duration and insomnia, are associated with chronic inflammation,” said the authors, including Fuzhong Xue, of the National Institute of Health Data Science of China at Shandong University in Jinan. “In theory, the immune response to inflammation could generate pro-inflammatory cytokines that result in cellular infiltration and airway inflammation, further increasing the risk of asthma,” they said in a journal news release. Spotting and treating sleep disorders early on might lessen the risks, regardless of genetic predisposition, the study noted. People with asthma often report broken or short sleep and insomnia. For the study, the researchers used U.K. Biobank data on more than 455,000 adults enrolled between 2006 and 2010. Participants were asked about their sleep patterns, based on whether they were a “morning lark” or “night owl,” sleep duration, insomnia, snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness. A…  read on >  read on >

Some furniture fabrics are coated with questionable PFAS compounds — often called ‘forever chemicals’ — to repel stains, but a new study suggests they may not even do the job they’re supposed to. The chemicals, widely believed to have a negative impact on human health, don’t seem to keep furniture any more or less stain-resistant than untreated fabric, according to a new study. “It was surprising that these harmful but supposedly indispensable chemicals had no practical benefit,” said lead author Jonas LaPier, a PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. “It makes you wonder what other uses of PFAS are also unnecessary and could be easily eliminated from products without noticeable change in performance,” he said in a news release from the Green Science Policy Institute. PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. These ubiquitous chemicals have been associated with cancer, obesity and more severe COVID-19 outcomes. Only a small fraction of the thousands of PFAS have been tested for toxicity, the study noted. All are either extremely persistent in the environment or break down into persistent PFAS. For the new study, investigators released droplets of coffee and oil-based salad dressing on indoor commercial furniture with six fabrics finished with PFAS and three that had no finish. They found that for the water-based coffee stains, none of the PFAS-finished fabrics performed better…  read on >  read on >

There’s no single known cause for autism, but researchers now point the finger at higher lithium levels in drinking water. Their new study found that pregnant women in Denmark whose household tap water had higher levels of lithium were more likely to have kids with autism, compared to pregnant women living in areas where tap water had lower levels of this element. Autism is characterized by problems with social interaction, communication and behavior. About 1 in 36 children in the United States have the disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. April is Autism Awareness Month. “Maternal prenatal exposure to lithium from naturally occurring drinking water sources in Denmark was associated with an increased autism spectrum disorder risk in the offspring,’ said study author Dr. Beate Ritz, a professor of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “This suggests a potential fetal neurotoxicity of lithium exposure from drinking water that needs to be further investigated.” Lithium leaches into drinking water from soil and rocks, but these levels could rise in the future from waste in lithium batteries that are not disposed of properly. “Lithium interferes with neurodevelopment during pregnancy and early infancy,” Ritz said. A biological pathway called WNT signaling plays a role in brain development and autism, and the pathway is also affected by lithium in animal…  read on >  read on >

An experimental targeted drug could provide a fresh chance for people with recurring head and neck cancer that has grown resistant to other treatments, a new clinical trial says. Ficlatuzumab used in combination with the already approved targeted drug cetuximab (Erbitux) significantly improved progression-free survival in relapsed head and neck cancer patients, according to results from a phase II trial. The results are particularly encouraging because the ficlatuzumab/cetuximab combo only worked in patients whose cancers aren’t driven by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, said lead researcher Dr. Julie Bauman, director of the GW Cancer Center at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “People with HPV-positive virally driven cancer have a better prognosis. They usually respond better to just about any therapy that’s put in front of them,” Bauman said. Patients with “the worst of the worst prognosis, with HPV-negative disease, was the group that appeared to disproportionately benefit, which was unexpected and quite gratifying,” Bauman said. HPV-negative head and neck cancers are typically driven by alcohol or tobacco use or exposure to occupational pollutants. The combo therapy had a 38% response rate in HPV-negative head and neck cancer patients. In those patients, tumors shrank by at least 30%. “This was a very sick patient population, because these were patients who had had their cancer come back after initial treatment, and they were all resistant to chemotherapy,…  read on >  read on >

(HealthDay News) – After six weeks of in-patient treatment at Walter Reed National MIlitary Medical Center, Sen. John Fetterman is back home in western Pennsylvania and in remission from depression. Fetterman will return to the Senate when Congress reconvenes April 17 after a recess. The Pennsylvania senator had been hospitalized since Feb. 15. “I am so happy to be home. I’m excited to be the father and husband I want to be, and the senator Pennsylvania deserves. Pennsylvanians have always had my back, and I will always have theirs,” Fetterman said in a statement on Twitter. The 53-year-old senator has a wife and three school-age children. Fetterman suffered a stroke that almost killed him while campaigning last May, followed by surgery to implant a pacemaker to manage the heart conditions atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathy. Depression is a common post-stroke symptom. Since then, he has also been dealing with an auditory processing disorder, which can affect a person’s ability to speak fluidly and quickly process spoken conversation. He uses devices to transcribe words in real time, the Associated Press reported. Fetterman was supplied with hearing aids while at Walter Reed. Fetterman spoke on Sunday about the symptoms he had been experiencing prior to being admitted to the hospital. During a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview, Fetterman said that “[I] had stopped leaving my bed, I’d stopped eating,…  read on >  read on >