Wildfires are known to have a lot of negative impacts on the environment and the health of the people who live through them. Yet another is the worsening of skin conditions, according to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). The group shared strategies to minimize the effect air pollution can have on people’s skin during its annual meeting, held this past weekend in New Orleans. “The health impact of air pollution from wildfires has not been well studied, but the evidence from our recent studies suggests that short-term exposure to wildfire air pollution can affect the skin and cause flares of certain skin disorders,” said Dr. Maria Wei, a professor of dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. “We found that the air pollution from California wildfires were associated with an increase in patient visits to dermatologists for both eczema and psoriasis,” Wei added in an AAD news release. “These results are consistent with studies indicating that air pollution from wildfires can be more toxic than air pollution caused by traditional industrial and traffic sources.” Psoriasis happens when the body makes skin cells too quickly, causing them to pile up and form patches on the skin. Eczema is inflamed, itchy, irritated skin. People with the skin condition eczema were more likely to visit dermatologists during the wildfires. Those with psoriasis were more likely to…  read on >  read on >

Considered one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, chlamydia can spread easily and often without obvious symptoms. And although chlamydia cases have declined in recent years, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chalks that up to reduced screening for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) during the pandemic. It is estimated that 1 in 20 sexually active women between the ages of 14 and 24 gets chlamydia, according to the American Sexual Health Association (ASHA). The side effects of untreated infection are significant, per the CDC: Chlamydia can permanently damage a woman’s reproductive system, and can also cause a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy (one that occurs outside the womb). What is chlamydia? Chlamydia is a bacterial infection that can be treated effectively if caught early, according to the Mayo Clinic. Often, it is symptom-free, making it easy to spread before someone realizes they have it. Between 50% and 70% of those who catch it don’t know they’ve caught it — a fact that has earned chlamydia the nickname of the “silent infection.” Research published recently in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that an opportune time to screen young women for chlamydia would be when they get long-acting birth control from their doctors. Is chlamydia curable? Because it is a bacterial infection, chlamydia is curable with antibiotics when caught early, according to the Cleveland…  read on >  read on >

A gene-editing experiment that restored the vision of mice might one day be used to treat a major cause of human blindness. Scientists in China reported they used the CRISPR-based gene-editing technique to bring back vision in mice with retinitis pigmentosa. Genome editing has previously been used to restore the vision of mice with genetic diseases such as Leber congenital amaurosis, which affect a layer of cells in the eye that supports the light-sensing rod and cone photoreceptor cells. Most of these conditions are caused by genetic defects in the photoreceptors themselves. “The ability to edit the genome of neural retinal cells, particularly unhealthy or dying photoreceptors, would provide much more convincing evidence for the potential applications of these genome-editing tools in treating diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa,” said researcher Kai Yao, a professor at Wuhan University of Science and Technology. For the study, Yao’s team set out to restore the vision of mice with retinitis pigmentosa caused by a flaw in a gene encoding a critical enzyme called PDE6B. For the task, they developed a more versatile CRISPR system called PESpRY. It can be programmed to correct many types of genetic mutation, no matter where they occur within the genome. When programmed to target the mutant gene, PESpRY efficiently corrected the mutation, according to the study. It restored the enzyme’s activity in the retinas…  read on >  read on >

Many patients worry that receiving a metal implant might set off their metal allergy, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. “Cases in which patients are inquiring about a metal allergy as it relates to their metal implants — including joint replacements, rods, pins, screws, plates, certain neurologic and cardiac devices such as pacemakers, and dental devices — are becoming more prevalent as medical implants become more common,” said Dr. Golara Honari, a clinical associate professor of dermatology at Stanford School of Medicine. About 10% of Americans will receive a medical implant during their lifetime. Millions of people in the United States report having a metal allergy. Metal, especially nickel, is one of the most common causes of allergic contact dermatitis, Honari said. It develops when skin is exposed to an allergen, often leading to a rash and itching. Other symptoms can include dryness, hives, blisters or pain. Honari noted that suspected metal implant allergies can be difficult to diagnose because everyone’s immune system reacts to allergens differently. Close collaboration between a dermatologist and the surgeon or physician who placed the implant is essential, she said. Patients who need an implant and have a documented history of a metal allergy should notify their dermatologist and physician or surgeon about any allergies prior to the procedure. Alternatives to metal implants are available. “For example, if it’s…  read on >  read on >

Commonly known as the “clap,” gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause infertility in both women and men if left untreated. The bad news is that cases are on the rise: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are on a steady and steep climb. Gonorrhea, already the second most common STD in the United States, saw a 10% increase in prevalence in 2020 alone. “The COVID-19 pandemic put enormous pressure on an already strained public health infrastructure,” Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, said recently. “There were moments in 2020 when it felt like the world was standing still, but STDs weren’t. The unrelenting momentum of the STD epidemic continued even as STD prevention services were disrupted.” The even worse news is that gonorrhea has developed antibiotic resistance, with recent research showing the bacteria is now resistant to numerous antibiotics in many parts of Africa. Doctors are down to one last effective class of antibiotics, cephalosporins, to treat a gonorrhea infection. What is gonorrhea? Gonorrhea is a bacteria that is spread through sexual contact, and sometimes through childbirth. The Mayo Clinic reports it most commonly affects the genitals, rectum and throat. In babies born to infected moms, it most commonly presents as an eye…  read on >  read on >

Genital herpes. It’s an embarrassing sexually transmitted disease that no one ever wants to be diagnosed with, but millions are. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are on a steep and steady climb. And herpes is no exception: An estimated 13% of the world’s population has it, the World Health Organization says. Most STDs are spread through the exchange of bodily fluids, but some, including the herpes simplex virus, can spread through skin-to-skin contact, according to the National Library of Medicine. What is genital herpes? Genital herpes is most often caused by the herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2). But the American Sexual Health Association (ASHA) notes it can also be caused by HSV-1, more commonly known as the cause of oral herpes, or cold sores. How do you get genital herpes? The virus is easily spread through vaginal, anal and oral sex. But, according to ASHA, the virus can lay dormant in the body for days, weeks or even years, only coming to the surface when triggered by something else happening in the body. This latency not only makes it difficult to detect, but hard to pinpoint where and when it was contracted. Genital herpes symptoms Unlike other STDs, where patients typically have little to no obvious symptoms, genital herpes can show up as small, red and painful…  read on >  read on >

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was released from the hospital on Monday and sent to a rehabilitation facility, after suffering a concussion last Wednesday night following a fall at a dinner. “Leader McConnell’s concussion recovery is proceeding well and the Leader was discharged from the hospital today,” McConnell’s Communications Director David Popp said in a statement. “At the advice of his physician, the next step will be a period of physical therapy at an inpatient rehabilitation facility before he returns home.” “Over the course of treatment this weekend, the Leader’s medical team discovered that he also suffered a minor rib fracture on Wednesday, for which he is also being treated,” Popp added. Exactly when the 81-year-old, who is the longest-serving Senate Republican leader in history, might return to the Senate is unclear. A Senate aide said McConnell’s doctors will decide how long he stays in rehab, but the aide noted that post-hospitalization stays often last one to two weeks, the Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, the minority leader has been in touch with Senate colleagues by text from the hospital and met at the hospital with Senate staff members and other advisers, according to the New York Times. Democrats have a slim 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate and have recently needed Vice President Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on some judicial nominations as…  read on >  read on >

It may be possible to nudge your vaccine to work a little better. The trick is a good night’s sleep. Sleep helps the immune system respond to vaccination, according to a new meta-analysis of past research, published March 13 in Current Biology. In it, researchers found that people who slept fewer than six hours per night produced significantly fewer antibodies than people who slept seven or more. That deficit was equivalent to two months of waning antibodies. “Good sleep not only amplifies but may also extend the duration of protection of the vaccine,” senior author Eve Van Cauter said in a journal news release. She is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. Van Cauter and lead author Karine Spiegel, of the French National Institute of Health and Medicine in Lyon, France, previously published a landmark study on the effects of sleep on vaccination in 2002. To update this, they searched, combined and reanalyzed results of seven studies of vaccination for viral infections, specifically influenza and hepatitis A and B. They compared the antibody response for individuals who slept seven to nine hours (as recommended by the National Sleep Foundation) to that of “short sleepers” who got less than six hours of shuteye. Overall, researchers found strong evidence that sleeping fewer than six hours per night reduced the immune response to vaccination. But a…  read on >  read on >