E-Mail
A new study involving researchers from the University of Oxford and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) has examined the change in overall and cause-specific death rates during the three months of the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020. The results are published today in
The BMJ.
In China, the emergence of COVID-19 was first reported during mid-December 2019 in Wuhan city, Hubei province. Coinciding with the January 2020 festivities for the Chinese Lunar New Year, the virus spread rapidly across China. This led to a national lockdown on 23 January 2020, which continued until early April.
The study analysed data from official Chinese death registries for the period 1 January - 31 March 2020, and compared this with the same period over the previous five years. The researchers performed separate analyses for Wuhan city, the epicentre of the pandemic, and elsewhere in China.
The study, published today in the
Lancet Regional Health by researchers from King s College London and the NIHR Guy s and St Thomas Biomedical Research Centre and supported by Impact on Urban Health, examined the prevalence of multimorbidity - two or more long-term diseases at once - and identified key relationships between diseases.
Researchers analysed electronic health records from participants aged 18 and over between April 2005 and May 2020 in one London borough. The borough has a deprived, multi-ethnic and youthful population.
Research showed multimorbidity is more common among women and Black ethnic minority groups. An estimated 21% of the population had multimorbidity and the number of conditions increased progressively with age, with people aged 80 and above having a median of four conditions.
E-Mail
An analysis of U.S. county-level data found a strong association between jail incarceration and death rates from infectious diseases, chronic lower respiratory disease, drug use, and suicide, in a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The researchers found this was the case to a lesser extent for heart disease and cancer. The study is the first to examine the link between the expansion of the jail population and multiple specific causes of death at the county level, and adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that decarceration strategies would improve public health. Findings are published online in the journal
After 60 days of treatment, diseased brain cells look like healthy cells More research needed before clinical trial can be initiated
CHICAGO and EVANSTON - Northwestern University scientists have identified the first compound that eliminates the ongoing degeneration of upper motor neurons that become diseased and are a key contributor to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a swift and fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims.
In addition to ALS, upper motor neuron degeneration also results in other motor neuron diseases, such as hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) and primary lateral sclerosis (PLS).
In ALS, movement-initiating nerve cells in the brain (upper motor neurons) and muscle-controlling nerve cells in the spinal cord (lower motor neurons) die. The disease results in rapidly progressing paralysis and death.