Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Breastfeeding is so important for child health that the World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef recommend that babies should be breastfed within an hour of birth, be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life, and then continue breastfeeding in combination with other foods for two years or more.

About 5% of people who catch COVID have long-lasting symptoms. In these people, loss of smell, dizziness, fatigue and other hallmark COVID symptoms can persist for months after the initial illness. Yet even five years after the COVID pandemic began, we still don’t know why some people develop long COVID and others don’t.

Researchers at the University of Liège (Belgium) have uncovered a previously unknown mechanism that regulates the immune response against parasites. During a parasitic infection, specific immune cells, known as virtual memory T cells, become activated and express a surface molecule called CD22, which prevents an excessive immune reaction. This discovery could help in better-controlling inflammation and improving immune responses to infections.

The U.S. winter virus season is in full force, and by one measure is the most intense in 15 years.

The UK government announced Friday an imminent ban in England on “bird gatherings” such as fairs, markets and shows, seeking to stop the spread of a highly contagious avian influenza.

Scientists are calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to disclose data about the risks of bird flu to people and pets that was posted briefly online Wednesday and quickly deleted.

Air pollution is a well-known risk factor for respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, its contribution to lower respiratory infections —those that affect the lower respiratory tract, including the lungs, bronchi and alveoli—is less well documented, especially in adults.

In just a decade, the drug-resistant fungal pathogen Candida auris (C. auris) has emerged as one of the most formidable threats to health care settings worldwide. Nowhere in the United States is this threat more pronounced than the New York-New Jersey (NY-NJ) metro area, which accounts for nearly 20% of the nation’s cases.

In a new case study, researchers from North Carolina State University found that a family suffering from illnesses that included neurological symptoms were co-infected with both several Bartonella species and Babesia divergens-like MO-1. The study presents more evidence of these co-infections in humans and further support for stealth Babesia and Bartonella pathogens as a cause or cofactor in neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms.

A disrupted protein degradation process in heart muscle cells can lead to a range of severe heart diseases. In the case of dilated cardiomyopathy, a pathological enlargement of the heart chambers, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now identified a cause: a low level of the enzyme Ubiquitin-specific peptidase 5 (USP5) leads to an accumulation of Ubiquitin in heart muscle cells and the formation of protein aggregates, which trigger heart diseases. Increasing USP5 levels in heart muscle cells protects the heart from harmful degradation processes, offering a perspective for new therapies.