Poliomyelitis

Commonplace viral illnesses makes a person more susceptible to Alzheimer's disease and five other catastrophic neurodegenerative diseases (ND), according to a recent study published in Neuron . Unexpected connections were also found between Dementia, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), Lou Gehrig's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and vascular dementia. An initial study focusing on blood test data of 10 million U.S. soldiers revealed that it's highly unlikely to get multiple sclerosis without first having an Epstein-Barr virus infection. These results impelled researchers at the United States National Institutes of Health Center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias (NIH CARD) to investigate other significant associations between viral infections and NDs. Troubling correlations were found according to an analysis of the medical records of almost a million people in Finland and the United Kingdom (UK). Which viruses are linked to brain functi...

When life throws you a curveball, there is only one way to tackle it. You get up and arm yourself, never to be hit again. This is what happened to 26-year-old Kunal Thakker, a photographer who picked up extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (TB) while documenting life in the slums. And while treatment of his stubborn condition confined him to a life at home, often bed-bound, he discovered the world of books, reading 40 of them during his therapies. But it was Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, revolving around a young woman's struggle to become a poet, which gave him hope. "Then I read inspirational books where the protagonists struggled to write their own life story" says Kunal, who has re-scripted his life — he is a bookstagrammer and recently started his YouTube channel on book reviews. After 18 months of turmoil, he was declared TB-free last December. "My father, who is also a TB survivor, wanted to know if I was resistant to any drug, " says Kunal. (Express...

If you've had your annual flu shot and are up to date on COVID vaccines, congratulations! But there's another important way to protect yourself from serious disease: getting vaccinated against pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs and one of the leading causes of adult hospitalizations in the United States. Very young children and people 65 or older are especially vulnerable to pneumonia. In all, nearly 50,000 people die each year in the United States from pneumonia. For older people who are relatively healthy, the beauty of the pneumonia vaccine is that — unlike the annual influenza vaccine — you may only need to get the shot just once in your lifetime to significantly reduce your chances of getting very ill or dying from pneumonia. What Is Pneumonia? Pneumonia is an infection that causes your lungs to fill with fluid. That can make breathing more difficult and can result in less oxygen in your bloodstream. Untreated pneumonia victims can die from a varie...

Ringworm describes a group of fungal skin conditions that create an itchy, round rash. Many people with ringworm can treat their symptoms with nonprescription medications. However, for some types of ringworm, doctors prescribe antifungal drugs. Ringworm infections are very common and can affect a person's skin, hair, and nails. Athlete's foot and jock itch are familiar examples of this type of infection. Drugstores sell a range of ointments, pills, and creams to treat the different types of ringworm. Many people successfully cure their infections within 4 weeks through regular use of such products. Ringworm infections are contagious, so people should treat symptoms quickly to reduce the risk of it spreading. This article looks at the types of ringworm and the treatments available, including over-the-counter (OTC) remedies and prescription medications. It also offers tips to help people manage their infections. Ringworm is the collective name for a group of fungal skin infecti...

Listen to this article Neck and back problems are two of the most common ailments people suffer from these days, as most people spend a good portion of their week in front of a screen. There's only so much you can do, but preventative measures like improving workplace attitudes are your best bet. Fortunately, yoga offers a wide range of innovative solutions to today's physiological problems. Yoga for neck and shoulder pain Here are some shoulder and neck pain-relieving poses you can practice daily to reduce discomfort. Try these yoga poses to get rid of neck and shoulder pain. Image courtesy: Shutterstock 1. Neck rolls The yoga counterpart of what is likely the most well-known and well-liked stretch for releasing neck tension is neck rolls. Start by ensuring that you're sitting comfortably and your hands are resting on your knees. Straighten your spine by sitting up straight, relaxing your shoulders, and press...

Abstract Understanding immunity in humans to Group A Streptococcus (Strep A) is critical for the development of successful vaccines to prevent the morbidity and mortality attributed to Strep A infections. Despite decades of effort, no licensed vaccine against Strep A exists and immune correlates of protection are lacking; a major impediment to vaccine development. In the absence of a vaccine, we can take cues from the development of natural immunity to Strep A in humans to identify immune correlates of protection. The age stratification of incidence of acute Strep A infections, peaking in young children and waning in early adulthood, coincides with the development of specific immune responses. Therefore, understanding the immune mechanisms involved in natural protection from acute Strep A infection is critical to identifying immune correlates to inform vaccine development. This perspective summarises the findings from natural infection studies, existing assays of immunity to Strep A, a...

Abstract Understanding the genetic and environmental risk factors for serious bacterial infections in ageing populations remains incomplete. Utilising the UK Biobank (UKB), a prospective cohort study of 500,000 adults aged 40–69 years at recruitment (2006–2010), can help address this. Partial implementation of such a system helped groups around the world make rapid progress understanding risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19, with insights appearing as early as May 2020. In principle, such approaches could also to be used for bacterial isolations. Here we report feasibility testing of linking an England-wide dataset of microbial reporting to UKB participants, to enable characterisation of microbial infections within the UKB Cohort. These records pertain mainly to bacterial isolations; SARS-CoV-2 isolations were not included. Microbiological infections occurring in patients in England, as recorded in the Public Health England second generation surveillance system (...