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Low-dose aspirin may help some people curb their risk of developing colon cancer — but not if they wait until age 70 to start, a large, new study suggests. Researchers found that when people began using aspirin in their 50s or 60s, their risk of developing colon cancer after age 70 was trimmed by 20%. There was no such benefit, however, among people who began using aspirin at age 70 or later. No one is saying all middle-aged people should rush to take low-dose aspirin, experts cautioned. In fact, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends low-dose aspirin (usually 81 mg a day) for only a select group: People in their 50s who have at least a 10% risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years. The rationale is that long-term aspirin use carries a risk of bleeding in the gut or the brain. But for those middle-aged adults, the risk is outweighed by the benefits — namely, reduced odds of both cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. With older adults, the benefits of starting aspirin are less clear. So the task force — a government-funded panel of medical experts — suggests people in their 60s talk to their doctor about the pros and cons. For people in their 70s, the aspirin question gets murkier. And a 2018 clinical trial fueled… read on > read on >

You have probably seen the social media posts: Your good friend’s co-worker is raising money online to help pay for cancer treatments or another friend needs funds to pay medical bills after a car crash. Crowdsourced fundraising seems to, at least partly, fill a gap between out-of-pocket health care costs and what people can afford. A new study looked at what the role of one of the best-known sites, GoFundMe, has played in crowdsourcing funds for medical costs over the past several years. “I think the most striking finding for us was the magnitude that the number of these fundraisers have grown over the past few years,” said study author Dr. Suveen Angraal, an internal medicine resident physician at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The study focused solely on GoFundMe fundraisers, extracting data between May 2010 (when the site began) and December 2018. The researchers found 42 fundraisers for medical conditions in 2010 and 119,373 in 2018, a number that rose incrementally through the years. “It’s a pretty dramatic increase that shows the magnitude of how big the issue is and how big the problem is when it comes to the cost of health care,” Angraal said. “We know that health care in the U.S. is expensive and, time and again, we have seen — not just me, but many of our colleagues across the… read on > read on >

As Americans await their COVID-19 shot, a new study of a different vaccine shows the power of Facebook posts in fueling “anti-vax” resistance to immunization. The study included more than 10 years of public Facebook posts on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. It found that nearly 40% of 6,500 HPV vaccine-related posts from 2006 to 2016 amplified a perceived risk. The data suggest the posts had momentum over time. “We should not assume that only the disease is perceived as a risk, but when research supports it, that medical treatments and interventions might unfortunately also be perceived as risks,” said Monique Luisi, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, in Columbia. “It’s more likely that people are going to see things on social media, particularly on Facebook, that are not only negative about the HPV vaccine, but will also suggest the HPV vaccine could be harmful. It amplifies the fear that people may have about the vaccine, and we see that posts that amplify fear are more likely to trend than those that don’t,” she said in a school news release Luisi said the findings could shed light on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and distribution. During the rollout, people will likely see a lot of negative information and that negative information will be what trends on social media, she said. “If… read on > read on >

Tinder, Grindr and other dating apps have a reputation for encouraging casual hookups, but a new study suggests app users may be looking for — and finding — love in all the right places after all. Unlike more traditional dating sites such as Match.com and EHarmony, these apps are largely based on rating photos. You swipe right if you like what you see, or left if you don’t. It’s that simple, which is why many felt they would foster shallow relationships. That wasn’t the case for Los Angeles publicist Anthoni Allen-Zouhry, who swiped right when she first saw her now husband’s photo on Tinder. They have now been married for close to two years and are expecting their first child. “Love found me,” she said. “I was looking for a relationship, but I was also just casually dating and not putting too much pressure on myself. It took a few months before we actually got serious.” And there are many couples just like Allen-Zouhry and her husband, according to a study published recently in the journal PLOS ONE. Study author Gina Potarca, a researcher at the Institute of Demography and Socioeconomics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, examined data from a 2018 family survey by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office to find out more about relationships formed online and offline. The survey included more… read on > read on >

One in four doctors has been personally attacked or sexually harassed on social media, a new study finds. Women are more likely to be sexually harassed, while both men and women are attacked based on religion, race or medical recommendations, researchers say. Doctors received negative reviews, coordinated harassment, threats at work, public exposure of their personal information and threats of rape and death. Distressingly, this was reported before the 2020 pandemic. The survey of 464 U.S. physicians was conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak and highlight the intensity of online harassment of doctors. The situation has only gotten worse since the spring, the authors noted. “If anything, our data is likely an underestimate of the true extent of attacks and harassment post-pandemic since so many doctors started to advocate for public health measures during the pandemic and have been met with an increasingly polarized populace emboldened by leadership that devalues science and fact,” said senior author Dr. Vineet Arora, assistant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. The study also reported that 1 in 6 women doctors said they had been sexually harassed on social media. Study co-author Tricia Pendergrast, a second-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, described the findings as worrisome. “We worry this emotionally distressing environment will drive women physicians off… read on > read on >