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Eleven Americans who were evacuated from a quarantined cruise ship in Japan have tested definitively for coronavirus, bringing the case count in this country to 26, U.S. health officials reported late Thursday. In China, the number of new cases of COVID-19 continued to decline on Friday, but South Korean officials battled to contain the rapidly spreading virus in its country. The first case was reported on Tuesday in that country; by Friday, that number had climbed to 204, the AP reported. The decline in Chinese cases has been due in part to Chinese health officials changing how they tally infections. Under the new system, there have now been a total of 75,465 cases and 2,236 deaths in mainland China. Among the 400 Americans who were on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship, roughly 300 Americans were evacuated over the weekend and are under quarantine in the United States. The 11 passengers whose tests came back positive for coronavirus were part of a group of 13 high-risk passengers who had been at Travis Air Force base in northern California since the cruise ship evacuation, the AP reported. They have since been transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which has a biocontainment unit and is specially designated to treat highly infectious diseases, CNN reported. The unit successfully treated three patients for Ebola in 2004. “The… read on >

A new poll suggests that education is all that stops most Americans from embracing plant-based diets that are better for the planet. The poll, of just over 1,000 adults nationwide, found that 51% said they would eat more plant-based foods if they knew more about the environmental impacts of their eating habits, but 70% said they rarely or never discuss this issue with friends or family. Nearly two-thirds said they’d never been asked to eat more plant-based foods, and more than half rarely or never hear about the topic in the media. In addition, more than half said they’re willing to eat more vegetables and plant-based alternatives and/or less red meat. Even though only 4% self-identified as vegan or vegetarian, 20% said they chose plant-based dairy alternatives two to five times a week or more often, and about the same percentage said they didn’t buy products from food companies that aren’t taking measures to reduce their environmental impact. Along with a lack of information, other barriers to eating more plant-based foods include perceived cost, taste and accessibility, according to the survey findings from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the Earth Day Network. For example, 49% of respondents believed a meal with a plant-based main course is more expensive than a meal with a meat-based main course, and many said they would eat… read on >

Lung diseases have been striking more people around the world in the past 30 years, new research shows. And being from poor regions is the most important risk factor for respiratory trouble, the scientists added. Aging and risk factors such as smoking, pollution and overweight/obesity are among the other major risk factors for chronic lung diseases, according to the analysis of data from 195 countries. Researchers led by Dr. Min Xie, from Tongji Medical College and Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, found that the number of deaths from chronic lung diseases rose 18% over the past three decades, from 3.3 million in 1990 to 3.9 million in 2017. The number of deaths increased with age and rose sharply among people aged 70 and older, and this age-related burden is likely to increase as the worldwide population ages, the researchers noted. The most common chronic lung diseases are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, but others such as pneumoconiosis (lung disease due to dust inhalation), interstitial lung disease and pulmonary sarcoidosis (due to lung scarring and inflammation) are also public health concerns worldwide. The study was published Feb. 19 in the BMJ journal. Overall, the highest rates of lung disease are in the poorest regions of the world. Lower rates in wealthier countries are due to people having better access to… read on >

Love to cross-country ski? Well, all those days spent striding across the snow-covered wilderness may do more than keep you in great physical shape. Swedish researchers report that very fit long-distance skiers were about 30% less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease during their 20-year study. The research suggests that any activity that keeps you fit might buffer the brain against disease. “Our study highlights the importance of staying physically active throughout life, in order to have a reserve to better cope when the frailties and diseases of old age inevitably arrive,” said study senior author Tomas Deierborg. He’s an associate professor in neuroscience at Lund University in Sweden. Deierborg said the researchers believe these very fit athletes have built up a greater “motor reserve” that slows any brain damage from Parkinson’s disease. He said it’s similar to the idea of “cognitive reserve” in people with dementia that suggests someone who is well-educated can sustain more brain damage from dementia before symptoms of the disorder become obvious. However, not everyone is convinced that motor reserve is playing a role in this study’s findings. Dr. Michael Okun, national medical director for the Parkinson’s Foundation, said, “There’s definite agreement among experts that exercise has positive effects on Parkinson’s disease and many positive effects beyond Parkinson’s disease. But it’s wishful thinking for us to assume that long-distance skiers have… read on >

The number of new COVID-19 coronavirus cases in China dropped Thursday, but the decline might just be due to new methods in how case numbers are tallied. Also on Thursday, two infected passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that had been quarantined in Japan died. The decline in Chinese cases was due in part to Chinese health officials again changing how they tally infections. Now, they are discounting patients whose lab tests come back negative and they are refining how they first assess sick patients, the Associated Press reported. Under the new system, 394 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed Thursday while 279 were discounted, the wire service said. There have now been a total of 74,576 cases and 2,118 deaths in mainland China. The two cruise ship passengers who died were an elderly Japanese couple who had been hospitalized during the quarantine, the AP reported. The ship’s quarantine ended Wednesday. Among the 400 Americans who were on board that same cruise ship, roughly 300 Americans were evacuated over the weekend and are under quarantine in the United States. At least 14 of those evacuees have tested positive for the new COVID-19 virus. More than 100 American passengers remain in Japan, however, and U.S. health officials announced Tuesday that they will not be allowed to return home for at least two more weeks. According… read on >

Many U.S. teenagers may be using their smartphones to harass, humiliate or otherwise abuse their dating partners. That’s according to a recent national survey of teens who’d been in a romantic relationship in the past year. Researchers found that 28% had been victims of “digital dating abuse” — surprisingly, with boys being targets more often than girls. While teen dating abuse has long been a problem, digital technology has opened up new ways for it to happen, according to lead researcher Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University. Teens might send threats by text; make embarrassing posts on social media; publicly share private, sometimes sexual, pictures; or secretly look through a partner’s device to monitor him or her. The new findings, from a nationally representative survey, give a better sense of how common the problem is among U.S. teens, Hinduja said. “This helps clarify what’s going on with youth who are in romantic relationships,” he said. “Many teenagers,” Hinduja said, “really don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to building healthy relationships.” Digital dating abuse is generally not an isolated issue: Many teens in the study (36%) said they’d been abused offline — physically, verbally or through coercive, controlling behavior. And it often went hand-in-hand with digital abuse. That’s not surprising, according to Hinduja,… read on >

As the number of coronavirus cases reached 75,000 and deaths topped 2,000, a two-week quarantine of a cruise ship docked in Japan ended Wednesday. About 300 Americans were recently evacuated from the Diamond Princess over the weekend and are already under quarantine in the United States. Fourteen of those evacuees have tested positive for the new COVID-19 virus. More than 100 American passengers still remain in Japan, however, and U.S. health officials announced Tuesday that they will not be allowed to return home for at least two more weeks. According to a statement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, containment measures that were taken on the ship “may not have been sufficient to prevent transmission. [The] CDC believes the rate of new infections on board, especially among those without symptoms, represents an ongoing risk.” Passengers who stayed on the ship will not be allowed to return to the United States until they have been off the ship for 14 days, without any symptoms or a positive test for the virus, the agency added. The ruling also applies to Americans who are hospitalized in Japan. In some good news, details released on nearly 45,000 cases of coronavirus in China show that 80% of cases are mild and the number of new cases has been declining for most of February. The report, released Monday… read on >

A key to your baby’s asthma risk may be as close as your laundry room. Canadian research shows that an infant’s exposure to household cleaning products in the first few months of life is tied to heightened odds for asthma by age 3. Babies may be especially vulnerable because they “typically spend 80% to 90% of their time indoors, and are especially vulnerable to chemical exposures through the lungs and skin due to their higher respiration rates and regular contact with household surfaces,” according to study lead researcher Tim Takaro. He’s a physician-scientist in the faculty of health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. In their research, Takaro’s group examined questionnaires completed by parents of more than 2,000 children who were exposed to household cleaning products from birth up to 4 months of age. The children were assessed at 3 years of age for asthma, recurrent wheeze and “allergic sensitization.” The study couldn’t prove cause and effect, but the researchers reported that babies with the highest levels of exposure to cleaning products had a 37% rise in their risk of being diagnosed with asthma by 3 years of age. These babies also had a 35% higher risk of developing recurrent wheezing by the same age. The most common household cleaning products parents reported using were hand dishwashing soap, dishwasher detergent, multisurface cleaners,… read on >

Little ones who stay up late may have a higher risk of becoming overweight by the time they are school-age, a new study suggests. Researchers found that young children who routinely got to sleep after 9 p.m. tended to gain more body fat between the ages of 2 and 6. Compared with kids who had earlier bedtimes, they had bigger increases in both waist size and body mass index (BMI) — an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. The findings do not prove that later bedtimes cause excess weight gain, said Dr. Nicole Glaser, who wrote a commentary accompanying the study, which was published online Feb. 18 in Pediatrics. But the report adds to evidence linking sleep habits to kids’ weight, according to Glaser, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, Davis. Specifically, studies have found higher rates of obesity among kids who either get too little sleep or have trouble falling or staying asleep. “At this point, I think it’s clear that there is a relationship between [sleep quality and obesity risk],” Glaser said. “The big question is whether the relationship is a causal one.” Dr. Claude Marcus, senior researcher on the study, agreed. “The causality is difficult to establish,” he said. Kids’ sleep habits do not exist in a vacuum, and it’s possible that other factors cause both late… read on >

New details on nearly 45,000 cases of COVID-19 coronavirus in China show that 80% of cases are mild and the number of new cases has been declining for most of February. The report, released Monday by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, offer some hope that the outbreak might be abating, the Associated Press reported. Still, “it’s too early to tell if this reported decline will continue. Every scenario is still on the table,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization, said during a media briefing Monday. Among the cases studied in the Chinese report, 14% developed pneumonia and 5% developed critical illness. The fatality rate has been 2.3% — 2.8% for males and 1.7% for females. Health care workers have high exposures to COVID-19, and the AP reported that another Chinese doctor on the front lines of fighting the virus has died Tuesday from complications tied to the illness. Liu Zhiming directed the Wuchang hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. The 51-year-old is the eighth health care worker to die of the disease, the Washington Post noted. On Tuesday, the case count in mainland China reached 72,436, while the number of deaths hit 1,868, the AP reported. Outside China, 14 of the more than 300 U.S. passengers evacuated from a cruise ship hit by the coronavirus outbreak tested… read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

U.S. Coronavirus Cases Now Stand at 26, South Korea Fights to Stem Spike in Cases

Many Americans Lack Knowledge, Not Desire, to Eat Plant-Based Diets

Lung Diseases on the Rise Worldwide

Skiers Study Suggests Fitness May Stave Off Parkinson’s

New China Coronavirus Cases Decline, 2 Passengers From Affected Cruise Ship Die

Texting Trauma: Many Teens Suffer ‘Digital Dating Abuse’

Quarantine Ends on Cruise Ship in Japan as Coronavirus Cases Near 75,000

Babies’ Exposure to Household Cleaning Products Tied to Later Asthma Risk

Late Bedtimes in Preschool Years Could Bring Weight Gain

Chinese Report Says Lion’s Share of Coronavirus Cases Are Mild