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While the number of new cases of coronavirus in China slowed on Wednesday, the death count has now risen to 1,113, Chinese health officials reported. Those totals far exceed the toll of the 2003 SARS outbreak, in which 8,098 were infected and 774 died worldwide, the Associated Press reported. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) also gave the infamous virus a new name: COVID-19. In the United States, 13 infections had been confirmed as of Tuesday. The latest case involved one of the hundreds of evacuees who were sent to four military bases and quarantined in the past two weeks. That patient is now in isolation in a hospital near March Air Reserve Base in San Diego, the AP reported. Things are much worse for Americans on board a cruise ship named the Diamond Princess, which has been quarantined in the Japanese port of Yokohama. Thirty-nine new cases were reported there on Wednesday, the APsaid. There have now been 174 cases reported, and at least 23 of those are American patients. Meanwhile, the first group of 195 American evacuees, who were flown out of Wuhan, China, on Jan. 29, have been cleared from their quarantine, the AP reported. More than 500 Americans who were evacuated last Thursday remain under quarantine, the news service said. Late last week, a 60-year-old man living in Wuhan, China,… read on >

MONDAY, Feb. 10, 2020A single dose of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine works as well as multiple doses to protect older teen girls against preinvasive cervical disease, which can develop into cervical cancer, researchers say. For the study, the researchers analyzed data on more than 133,000 females aged 9 to 26. Half weren’t vaccinated and half received one or more HPV vaccine doses between January 2006 and June 2015. Among 15- to 19-year-olds, those who were vaccinated had lower rates of preinvasive cervical disease than those who weren’t, the findings showed. Within five years, about 2.6% of those who weren’t vaccinated developed preinvasive cervical disease, compared with less than 2% who had received one shot or more, according to the report. The risk of preinvasive cervical disease was 36% lower for those who had one shot, 28% lower after two shots and 34% lower for those who had three doses, compared with those who weren’t vaccinated. For the youngest (9 to 14 years) and oldest (20 to 26 years) age groups, there were no significant differences in risk for preinvasive cervical disease, according to the study published online Feb. 10 in the journal Cancer. “This study shows the impact of vaccinating at younger ages and its lasting long-term protection against cervical cancer,” said study author Dr. Ana Rodriguez. She’s an associate professor of obstetrics and… read on >

Suicidal behavior is declining among U.S. teenagers who identify as LGBT, but the problem remains pervasive. That’s the conclusion of two new studies that tracked trends among U.S. teenagers over the past couple of decades. Over the years, more kids have been identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) — and their likelihood of reporting suicidal thoughts and behavior has gone down. The bad news is they remain at much higher risk of suicide than their heterosexual peers, the researchers said. In one study, LGBT teenagers were over three times more likely than heterosexual teens to report a suicide attempt. The other study charted a similar pattern, with LGBT kids still reporting a high prevalence of suicidal thoughts in 2017 — and roughly a quarter saying they’d attempted suicide in the past year. The studies, published online Feb. 10 in Pediatrics, could not dig into the reasons. But past research has suggested that bullying plays a role, according to Brian Mustanski, director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University in Chicago. LGBT students are more likely to be targeted by bullies than their heterosexual peers are. But in school districts with strong anti-bullying policies, Mustanski said, LGBT students typically report less suicidal behavior. So efforts to combat bullying could be part of the solution, according to Mustanski.… read on >

The coronavirus outbreak that is raging in China continued to spread Monday, with just over 40,000 cases and 908 deaths now confirmed. Those numbers far exceed the toll of the 2003 SARS outbreak, in which 8,098 were infected and 774 died worldwide, the Associated Press reported. Outside China, more than 440 cases have been reported, including two deaths. As of Monday morning, a total of 23 Americans onboard a quarantined cruise ship in Japan have also now tested positive for the virus, according to the AP. So far, a total of 136 passengers on the Diamond Princess, docked in Yokohama, Japan, have confirmed illness and 600 0f the 3,711 passengers have requested medications. Late last week, a 60-year-old man living in Wuhan, China, became the first American citizen to die from the new coronavirus that first surfaced in that Chinese city. The man, whose name has not been disclosed, died Thursday at Jinyintian Hospital in Wuhan, the U.S. Embassy in China said Saturday. According to the Washington Post, the embassy issued a statement with “our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss. Out of the respect for the family’s privacy, we have no further comment.” It’s not clear why the man was not able to leave Wuhan on one of a number of U.S. State Department evacuation flights that brought hundreds of Americans to… read on >

For better or worse, your social media friends might be influencing your eating habits, British researchers report. They asked nearly 400 college students to estimate how much fruit, veggies, snacks and sugary drinks their Facebook friends ate each day. Those participants who believed their social media buddies ate the recommended five daily portions of fruits and vegetables in turn ate one extra serving. But they also helped themselves to an extra portion of unhealthy snacks and sugary drinks for every three portions they believed their online friends had. “This study suggests we may be influenced by our social peers more than we realize when choosing certain foods,” said study co-leader Lily Hawkins, a doctoral student in health psychology at Aston University in Birmingham, England. “We seem to be subconsciously accounting for how others behave when making our own food choices.” The findings offer evidence that online social circles influence people’s eating habits, and they suggest it might be possible to use social media to encourage healthy eating, according to the researchers. “The implication is that we can use social media as a tool to ‘nudge’ each other’s eating behavior within friendship groups, and potentially use this knowledge as a tool for public health interventions,” Hawkins said in a university news release. Researchers found no significant link between participants’ eating habits and their body mass index… read on >

Migraine drugs that might work for adults won’t prevent the debilitating headaches in kids and teens, a new study shows. A number of drugs are used to prevent migraines, but treatment of youngsters has largely been based on the results of adult studies, the international team of researchers pointed out. What really works in kids? To find out, the researchers reviewed 23 studies conducted between 1967 and 2018. In total, these studies included more than 2,200 young patients. About one-quarter of these patients received an inactive placebo, while the remainder were treated with a range of drugs (antiepileptics, antidepressants, calcium channel blockers, blood pressure drugs) or food supplements. None of the medications were more effective than placebo in the long term (five to six months or longer), and only two — propranolol and topiramate — provided benefits in the short term (less than 5 months), according to the study published online Feb. 10 in JAMA Pediatrics. The bottom line, according to researcher Cosima Locher: “The preventive pharmacological treatment of pediatric migraine with all these drugs is barely more effective than placebo.” Locher is with the faculty of psychology at the University of Basel, in Switzerland. The findings highlight the need for more research into migraine prevention in children and teens, and into the power of the “placebo effect” specifically in these patients, the researchers said.… read on >

Smartphones, and being on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and the like may be taking a big toll on teens’ mental health, a new survey of collected data on the subject shows. Canadian researchers pored over dozens of studies and said the negative effects of social media on teens’ well-being is on the rise. “Physicians, teachers and families need to work together with youth to decrease possible harmful effects of smartphones and social media on their relationships, sense of self, sleep, academic performance, and emotional well-being,” said study lead author Dr. Elia Abi-Jaoude. He’s a staff psychiatrist at The Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto Western Hospital, both in Toronto. As part of their research, Abi-Jaoude and his colleagues uncovered patterns across multiple studies. For example: In one U.S. study, the rate at which kids and teens arrive in hospitals due to suicidal thoughts or attempts “almost doubled between 2008 and 2015, with the highest increase among adolescent girls,” the researchers noted. U.S. overdose rates for young people ages 10 to 18, which has previously been on the decline, “increased substantially from 2011 to 2018, primarily among girls,” another study found. At the same time “the proportion of [U.S.] young people who between the ages of 13 and 17 years who have a smartphone has reached 89%, more than doubling over a 6-year period,” the data review… read on >

Women who receive general anesthesia during a cesarean section delivery are at higher risk of severe postpartum depression that requires hospitalization, as well as self-inflicted harm and suicidal thoughts, a new study finds. Researchers from Columbia University analyzed more than 428,000 discharge records of women who delivered by C-section in New York state hospitals between 2006 and 2013. Eight percent had general anesthesia. In all, 1,158 women (3%) had to be hospitalized for severe postpartum depression. Of those, 60% were diagnosed at readmission, about 164 days after their initial discharge. Compared with local anesthesia, general anesthesia was associated with a 54% increased odds of postpartum depression, and a 91% higher risk of suicidal thoughts or self-inflicted injury. The study only found an observation rather than a cause-and-effect link. “General anesthesia for cesarean delivery may increase the risk of postpartum depression because it delays the initiation of mother to infant skin-to-skin interaction and breastfeeding, and often results in more acute and persistent postpartum pain,” study first author Dr. Jean Guglielminotti said in a university news release. “These situations are often coupled with a new mother’s dissatisfaction with anesthesia in general, and can lead to negative mental health outcomes,” he added. Guglielminotti is an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. General anesthesia can hasten delivery in an emergency,… read on >

Choosing the right antidepressant for someone who is depressed can be hit or miss. But a new study shows that artificial intelligence (AI) technology may be able to help. Researchers input information from electrical signals in the brain into a computer program that learns as it goes. Based on brain activity, the AI technology helped predict whether or not an antidepressant will help treat a particular person’s depression. So far, the new technology has only been tested on one type of antidepressant — sertraline (Zoloft). But the researchers think it will be useful for other antidepressants. They also hope it can predict how well other types of depression treatments might work, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation. “Right now in psychiatry, when we see a patient with depression, we have very little idea of what the most effective treatment will be. Then we start treatment in a trial-and-error fashion, which can lead to a lot of frustration,” explained senior study author Dr. Amit Etkin, a psychiatry professor at Stanford University in California. He’s currently on leave from Stanford to work on developing this technology as CEO of a company called Alto Neuroscience. “It’s not that antidepressants don’t work well. Some work extremely well. An objective test could help bridge the gap in knowing which treatments are effective and for whom they will be effective,” Etkin said.… read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Coronavirus Spread Slows, But Death Toll Jumps to 1,113

One Dose of HPV Vaccine May Protect Against Cervical Cancer

Fewer LGBT Teens Plagued by Suicidal Thoughts, But Rates Still High

Coronavirus Cases Top 40,000, While Deaths Hit 908

How Does Social Media Shape Your Food Choices?

Meds May Not Prevent Migraines in Kids

More Evidence Links Social Media Use to Poorer Mental Health in Teens

General Anesthesia Boosts Postpartum Depression Risk After C-Section: Study

AI May Help Guide Patients to Most Effective Antidepressant

One Dose of HPV Vaccine May Protect Against Cervical Cancer