Social media platforms are spouting a steady stream of unsafe skin care trends, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. This is National Healthy Skin Month, and board-certified dermatologists are putting a spotlight on five unsafe practices you might come across while perusing social media. Performing cosmetic treatments at home People are microneedling, injecting fillers and using lasers to remove unwanted hair in videos taken at home. “This is something I find really concerning,” said Dr. Sara Moghaddam, a board-certified dermatologist in Selbyville, Del. “For example, at-home microneedling, also known as derma-rolling, is dangerous due to risk of infections and improper techniques.” Dr. Oyetewa Oyerinde, an assistant professor of dermatology and director of the Skin of Color Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, warns that an unsafe cosmetic procedure can look perfectly harmless on someone’s social media platform. “My patients will see people who document their entire experience performing a cosmetic procedure on TikTok or on Instagram,” Oyerinde said. “I tell patients, even if their immediate effect looks good to you — and they may be using filters and other things to make it look good — you have no idea if they ended up in the emergency room afterward because of a bad reaction.” Trying nasal tanning spray Self-tanner applied to the skin is a safe way to gain a lovely glow,…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, Nov. 13, 2023 (Healthday News) — In a finding that could change the landscape of heart disease care, the wildly popular weight-loss drug Wegovy has proved its mettle in protecting the heart after lowering the risk of cardiac problems in patients by 20%. The results from this large, international study had been eagerly awaited by scientists and doctors alike. Why? It is the first to show that Wegovy’s therapeutic powers may extend to the cardiovascular system, helping prevent a heart attack, stroke or a heart-related death in people who already have heart disease but not diabetes. “It moves from a kind of therapy that reduces body weight to a therapy that reduces cardiovascular events,” study author Dr. Michael Lincoff, vice chairman for research in the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, told the Associated Press. A high-dose version of the diabetes drug Ozempic, which already has been shown to lower the risk of heart problems in people who have diabetes, Wegovy seems to do the same for heart patients who don’t have the blood sugar disease. Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a heart expert at the Mayo Clinic, told the AP that he believes the new findings will alter heart treatment guidelines and “dominate the conversation” for years to come. “This is the population who needs the medicine the most,” said Lopez-Jimenez, who wasn’t…  read on >  read on >

An experimental device that isolates blood flow to the brain has the potential to revolutionize brain research. The device redirects the brain’s blood supply through a pump that maintains or adjusts a range of variables necessary to maintain the organ, including blood pressure, temperature, oxygenation and nutrients, researchers report. When tested on a pig brain, the device maintained brain activity and health over a five-hour period, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center found. The device could lead to new ways to study the human brain without influence from other bodily functions, researchers said. “This novel method enables research that focuses on the brain independent of the body, allowing us to answer physiological questions in a way that has never been done,” Dr. Juan Pascual, a professor of neurology, pediatrics, and physiology at UT Southwestern, said in a medical center news release. The findings were published recently in the journal Scientific Reports. Researchers have already used the system to better understand the effects of low blood sugar in the absence of other factors. Although scientists can induce low blood sugar in lab animals by restricting food intake or dosing them with insulin, the body can compensate by altering metabolism and cloud the results. This new device allows researchers to directly alter the blood sugar pumped into the brain. The device also could lead to improvements to…  read on >  read on >

A Mr. Magoo with thick glasses peering out from behind the wheel might not inspire confidence from his fellow motorists, but a new study shows other types of vision loss might be even more dangerous while driving. Loss of peripheral vision also can dramatically increase the risk of a car crash, Australian researchers presented in findings this week at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting in San Francisco. Such research is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Eye chart tests check for visual acuity, or the ability to see distant objects clearly, and state laws generally require motorists to have 20/40 vision or better in at least one eye to drive unrestricted. But researchers instead focused on visual field, or how widely a person can see when staring straight ahead. A wide field of vision would allow drivers to see potential hazards on either side of a car while still paying attention to what is in front of them. The research team at Western Australia University evaluated nearly three decades’ worth of data on more than 31,000 drivers aged 50 or older. More than 4,000 of the older drivers (14%) had been involved in at least one car crash, and more than half of those were experiencing some extent of visual field loss. Analysis showed that visual field loss of any sort…  read on >  read on >

THURSDAY, Nov. 9, 2023 (HealthDay) — There’s good news for people with diabetes who are turning to drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy to treat their disease and lose weight: The drugs probably will not harm their vision. Semaglutide (the generic name for both medicines) can trigger rapid drops in blood sugar. Prior research had linked these types of blood sugar changes with a worsening of a common diabetes complication called diabetic retinopathy, which can threaten vision. So, could people taking Ozempic and Wegovy experience any new-onset diabetic retinopathy, or a worsening of existing retinopathy? To find out, a team led by Dr. Zeeshan Haq, of Retina Consultants of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, tracked outcomes for more than 48,000 adults with type 2 diabetes. The participants ranged in age from 51 to 75, and all had been treated with injectable semaglutide. Haq’s team found that within two years of starting the treatment, only 2.2% of patients went on to develop a new retinopathy or showed a worsening of existing retinopathy. Focusing on a subset of patients who’d already been diagnosed with early-stage retinopathy, the Minneapolis researchers found that just 3.5% showed any worsening of their disease. And among those who’d had an advanced form of diabetic retinopathy at the start of the study, 60% actually saw an improvement in their eye illness, the researchers noted. Although more…  read on >  read on >

Eczema can be a burden on the mind as well the body, a new survey shows. People with eczema are more likely to experience depression and anxiety, and it worsens when additional allergic symptoms occur, according to a study to be presented Thursday at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. Nearly three out of four (72%) patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) — the medical term for eczema — report having symptoms of poor mental health for up to 10 days during the previous month, results show. About one in five (17%) said they had symptoms of poor mental health for 11 or more days. “People who don’t have AD don’t understand how debilitating it can be,” said lead study author Allison Loiselle, senior manager of data science and research with the National Eczema Association. “As well as the terrible itching and dry, cracked skin, there are often disruptions to sleep and wider effects on quality of life and general well-being,” Loiselle said in an ACAAI news release. “Depression and anxiety are among the symptoms of those who have AD and deal with the chronic and unpredictable nature of this condition.” For the study, researchers surveyed nearly 1,000 people with eczema. About a third of the patients (36%) reported their current eczema as mild. Despite the toll eczema…  read on >  read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received at least three reports of people being hospitalized after taking counterfeit versions of the wildly popular weight-loss drugs known as semaglutides. At least one of these reports includes mention of a counterfeit version of the Novo Nordisk medication Ozempic, CBS News reported. Ozempic and Wegovy, another semaglutide medication made by Novo Nordisk, have been tough to find for months as millions of Americans turn to them for weight loss. In total, 42 reports that mention the use of counterfeit semaglutide were submitted to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System through the end of September, CBS News reported. Of those, 28 were classified as “serious,” with outcomes that included deaths. All were submitted to the FDA by Novo Nordisk. However, the records do not prove the counterfeits directly caused the adverse events. An FDA spokesperson told CBS News that the agency has “no new information to share regarding reports of adverse events” linked to semaglutide counterfeits. “The FDA will investigate any report of suspect counterfeit drugs to determine the public health risks and the appropriate regulatory response. The FDA remains vigilant in protecting the U.S. drug supply from these threats,” agency spokesperson Jeremy Kahn told CBS News. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk has said that it is working with the FDA to make consumers aware of the counterfeits and how they differ…  read on >  read on >

Forget “Jaws”: The remarkable wound-healing power of shark skin could end up helping humans, new research claims. Shark skin is coated with a special film of mucus that more closely resembles mucus generated by people than that generated by other types of fish, noted researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm. They conducted their investigation at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Wood’s Hole, Mass., and reported their findings recently in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. It’s long been known that sharks have an unusual ability to quickly heal and recover from wounds, explained researchers Jakob Wikström, an associate professor of dermatology and principal investigator at Karolinska, and his colleague, senior study author Etty Bachar-Wikström. However, “much more is known about fish biology than shark biology, for obvious reasons,” Wikström explained in an MBL news release. “Fish are easier to handle, and there’s a bigger commercial interest in them.” Sharks are cartilaginous and, along with skates, make up just 1% of fish species, while bony fishes comprise the other 99%. “Our aim in this paper was to characterize shark skin at the molecular level, which hasn’t been done in depth,” Bachar-Wikström said. How do sharks heal so quickly from wounds? To try to find out, the researchers focused on the thin layer of mucus that overlies a shark’s rough-textured skin. They found its chemical…  read on >  read on >

An old scourge, syphilis, is returning with a vengeance in the United States, affecting not only adults but also the most vulnerable — newborns. Rates of congenital syphilis soared 10-fold between 2012 and 2022, according to new data released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The congenital syphilis crisis in the United States has skyrocketed at a heartbreaking rate,” CDC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry said in a statement. “New actions are needed to prevent more family tragedies. We’re calling on healthcare providers, public health systems and communities to take additional steps to connect mothers and babies with the care they need.”  Congenital syphilis occurs when the illness is passed from the mother to her newborn. According to the March of Dimes, “If not treated right away, congenital syphilis can cause problems for your baby later in life,” including deformities of the bones and teeth, paralysis or seizures, problems with vision and hearing and developmental delays. In 2022, more than 3,700 babies across the United States were born with syphilis, a rate that’s 10 times that of the previous decade. The CDC blames the steep rise in cases among women of childbearing years on restrictions in access to good prenatal care, among other factors. “Almost 9 in 10 cases of newborn syphilis in 2022 might have been prevented with timely testing and…  read on >  read on >

When doctors advise patients to lose weight, an optimistic approach is more likely to get results. Researchers found that patients were more likely to participate in the recommended program and shed pounds if doctors presented obesity treatments as an “opportunity.” They compared that upbeat approach to emphasizing the negative consequences of obesity or using neutral language.  International guidelines recommend that primary care doctors screen patients and offer treatment for those who are overweight or obese. Patients have said that clinicians’ words and tone matter to them. For this study, a University of Oxford team analyzed recordings of doctor-patient conversations at 38 primary care clinics about a free, 12-week behavioral weight-loss intervention. The researchers were looking for relationships between language used in the visit and patient behaviors, such as participation in the program and weight loss outcomes. The authors characterized these interactions in three ways. The “good news” approach was the least common. It communicated positivity and optimism, focused on the benefits of weight loss and presented the program as an opportunity. In that approach, doctors made little mention of obesity, weight or body mass index (an estimate of body fat based on height and weight) as a problem. The information was presently smoothly and quickly, and conveyed excitement. The “bad news” approach emphasized the “problem” of obesity. Physicians asserted themselves as experts. They focused on…  read on >  read on >