Next time you’re on a cruise, be wary of your (or your neighbor’s) private balcony hot tub, researchers warn. These luxe cabin features were pinpointed as a source of outbreaks of the respiratory illness Legionnaires disease that broke out on two ships. The Legionella bacterium thrives in wet, warm conditions, so “hot tubs offer favorable conditions for Legionella growth and transmission when maintained and operated inadequately, regardless of location,” said a team of researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while more public bathing spots onboard may be rigorously cleaned by staff, “private hot tubs on cruise ships are not subject to the same maintenance requirements as are public hot tubs in common areas,” said a team led by Sooji Lee, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Legionnaires disease is a rare form of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria. The germ is sometimes found in fountains, spray parks, hot tubs, showers and faucets. People can contract the disease by breathing in a mist or vapor containing the bacteria.  The first cruise ship outbreak covered by the new report occurred on an unnamed vessel during a two-week cruise in November 2022. By May of 2023, five passengers who took part in that cruise had gotten sick with Legionnaires, the researchers reported. Three more passengers on the same ship,…  read on >  read on >

Folks with peanut allergies don’t have to worry that someone might be munching on the nuts during an airline flight, researchers report. It turns out there’s no evidence to the commonly held belief that nut allergens can be spread through aircraft ventilation systems, a new review concluded. “In fact, food-induced allergic reactions are around 10–100 times less common during flights than ’on the ground’, perhaps because of the multiple precautions food-allergic passengers take when flying,” wrote the research team led by Paul Turner, a clinical professor of allergy and immunology with the Imperial College London’s National Heart & Lung Institute. For the review, published Oct. 15 in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, researchers compiled all published evidence on the subject dating back to 1980. Overall, any allergic reactions to food caused by airborne particles are rare, researchers found. Notable exceptions include vapors from fish or seafood and exposure to wheat flour at work. Peanut allergens can be detected at very low levels in the air while shelling nuts, researchers said, but the dust settles quickly and can only be detected close to the nuts. That means very little peanut dust circulates in the air. What’s more, air is completely exchanged every three to four minutes during a flight by the cabin’s ventilation system. Half of the cabin’s air intake is recirculated air that has…  read on >  read on >

Diabetics who fly with an insulin pump could find themselves with lower-than-normal blood sugar levels, a new study says. Altitude appears to affect the ability of insulin pumps to deliver a steady supply of the hormone, researchers reported Sunday at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting in Madrid. “Individuals who use insulin pumps should be aware of the potential impact of changes in the cabin air pressure on insulin delivery,” said lead researcher Dr. Ka Siu Fan, with the University of Surrey in the U.K. For the study, researchers tested 26 insulin pumps in a hypobaric chamber programmed to mimic the atmospheric changes during a normal commercial airline flight. The chamber was depressurized during a 20-minute ascent, maintained the air pressure of an 8,000-foot altitude flight for a half-hour, then re- pressurized during a 20-minute descent to the ground. Researchers found that pumps over-delivered insulin during the ascent, but not enough to cause hypoglycemia. At the same time, the pumps under-delivered insulin during descent, which could cause blood sugar levels to spike but not enough to cause health problems. “The drop in cabin pressure during ascent may lead to a slight increase in insulin delivery as a result of the formation of air bubbles which displace excess insulin out of the cartridge,” Fan said in a meeting news release. “A slight…  read on >  read on >

The pandemic highlighted the risk that air travel carries for the spread of infectious diseases, and that risk remains even though the health emergency has passed. “Airplanes have many touch points that are perfect for the transfer of bacteria or viruses,” said Dr. Mike Ren, an assistant professor of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “You don’t want to get sick while on vacation and prevent your chance for relaxation or come back with a cold or something worse.” The risk of catching a cold or flu starts even before a person boards their flight, Ren said. Ride-sharing services transport hundreds of strangers each day, and thousands pass through airports on their way to and from their terminal. But a few common practices can help protect you from catching something, Ren said: Use sanitizing wipes to clean the most-touched places on a plane — seats, tray tables, seat back pockets, arm rests, flight attendant call buttons, air vents and lavatory door handles Apply hand sanitizer or wash your hands regularly, particularly prior to eating a snack or after touching check-in kiosks, handling boarding passes or using the airplane or airport bathroom Keep boarding passes and other documents on your smartphone, to reduce the number of times you touch surfaces in the airport and on the plane Wear a mask through…  read on >  read on >

Booze could threaten a sleeping air passenger’s heart health, particularly on long-haul flights, a new study warns. Alcohol combined with cabin pressure at cruising altitude lowers the amount of oxygen in the blood and raises the heart rate for a long period, even in the young and healthy, researchers explained. And the more alcohol a person drinks, the greater these effects might be – especially among older passengers or those with chronic health problems, results show. Blood oxygen levels can decline to around 90% in healthy passengers at cruising altitude, researchers said in background notes. Anything lower than that is considered hypobaric hypoxia, or low blood oxygen levels at high altitude. Alcohol relaxes blood vessel walls and increases heart rate during sleep, causing an effect similar to hypobaric hypoxia, researchers said. That made them suspect the combination could do harm to sleeping air passengers. For their experiment, researchers recruited 48 people ages 18 to 40. They assigned half to a sleep lab under normal air pressure and half to an altitude chamber that mimicked cabin pressure at cruising altitude. Among those, half were asked to drink an amount of vodka that roughly equaled two cans of beer or two glasses of wine. The combination of alcohol and cabin pressure caused a fall in blood oxygen levels to just over 85%, and a compensatory increase in…  read on >  read on >

Experts are expecting this Memorial Day weekend to be the busiest yet, with nearly 44 million Americans projected to travel between Thursday and Monday. A fair number of those travelers will have a companion suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia-related illness, according to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA). “Taking a trip during Memorial Day Weekend can be a fun way to kick off the summer season for someone affected by dementia if caregivers make the proper preparations and adaptations,” said Jennifer Reeder, the AFA’s director of educational and social services. “Whether traveling by car or mass transit, there are a few steps caregivers can follow to make traveling more comfortable, less stressful and more enjoyable for their loved ones and themselves,” Reeder added in an AFA news release. Some of these steps include: Making sure travel is advisable at all. People early in dementia might still enjoy traveling, but those in the later stages might find it an overwhelming experience. Check with their doctor to make sure they are okay to travel the distance you’ve planned for your trip. Plan around the person’s abilities and routine. Small or unfamiliar changes can sometimes be too much for a person with dementia. Choose a mode of travel and a schedule that causes the least amount of anxiety and stress by taking into account the person’s…  read on >  read on >