Rising Colon Cancer Rate In Young Americans Can’t Be Explained

The Washington Post: Colon Cancer Is Rising In Young Americans. It’s Not Clear Why. 
The five people gathered around the restaurant table do not fit the profile of colon cancer patients. They’re female, and they’re young. Two were diagnosed in their 20s, one in her 30s, two in their early 40s. Their colon cancer support group gathers about once a month to share stories, such as the one about the doctor who said you just need a laxative, the one about the oncologist who said there’s nothing we can do for you but give you chemotherapy the rest of your life, the one about friends saying, “You don’t look sick,” without realizing that isn’t helpful. “It’s making themselves feel better,” said Carly Brown, 29, a schoolteacher diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer five years ago. (Achenbach and McGinley, 12/21)

In other health and wellness news —

The Baltimore Sun: New Online Tool Helps Caregivers Pass On Plans For Loved Ones With Disabilities 
There is now an online tool that enables parents and guardians of people with disabilities to build personalized plans that are simple, secure and easy to share with other caregivers. “It is completely different from a will, which usually focuses on who gets what. The plan allows you to specify details (of your loved ones’) daily routine, pick-up times, medications and more,” Joel Pearlman said. “It is a really powerful day-to-day look at what makes their day and your life work best.” ... The Dani Plan has a free 21-day trial period as well as paid premium options. (Thwing, 12/21)

The Washington Post: VR Can Help Seniors In Nursing Homes With Mood, Memory And Loneliness 
On Wednesday mornings, residents at Citrus Place, a retirement community in this middle-class town, gather for a weekly institution: 30 minutes in virtual reality. The activity is voluntary, and attendance is good. On this day, about a dozen participants from the facility’s assisted-living wing sat on love seats in a circle, wearing VR headsets that looked like big goggles. Their virtual schedule was packed: a hot-air balloon ride, then a safari, then to the grocery store. (Hunter, 12/21)

WUSF: How To Cope With Grief During The Holidays 
Mental health experts say it's OK to not be merry this holiday season if you're struggling with loss. They encourage people to look for small moments of joy. (Colombini, 12/21)

The New York Times: The Army Said Tank Blasts Don’t Harm Troops. His Case Raises Doubts.
Christian Beyer worked around the ground-shaking blasts of one of the Army’s most powerful weapons — the M1 Abrams tank — for 23 years. And for nearly all that time, he was a model soldier, given awards for meritorious service and promoted all the way up to master sergeant in charge of training young tank crews. Then in 2020, at age 38, he started to fall apart. He couldn’t sleep. His family noticed that his balance had turned unsteady and he began to slur his speech. He would weep about small things and dwell on imagined conspiracies. (Philipps, 12/21)

The Wall Street Journal: A New Way To Treat Back Pain
What if the best way to treat your chronic back pain is by retraining your brain? That’s the premise of a novel approach to chronic pain. Many people feel pain even after a physical injury has healed or when doctors can’t find a physical cause. The approach, called “pain reprocessing therapy,” tries to train the brain not to send false pain signals. Some early results are promising. In a study published last year in JAMA Psychiatry, 66% of a group of people who did the therapy for a month were pain-free or nearly pain-free up to a year later. (Reddy, 12/21)

CBS News: New UCSF Study Finds Some Diagnosed With Kidney Disease May Not Need Dialysis
Dr. Chi Hsu is the Chief of the division of Nephrology at UCSF, he along with Dr. Ian McCoy were conducting a study on how patients with acute kidney disease requiring dialysis are currently being managed at outpatient dialysis clinics. ... "Most of the research on acute kidney injury has been on when patients should start dialysis or how much dialysis they need in the hospital. and there has been relatively little research on how to take people off of dialysis when they start recover and how to recognize recovery." (Cook, 12/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Flesh-Rotting ‘Tranq’ Undermines Fight Against Fentanyl 
Carisa Collins-Caddle peered at a scar in the crook of Regina Locklear’s arm. Weeks earlier, a wound that appeared after Locklear injected illicit drugs had swelled to the size of an orange. She had texted a photo to Collins-Caddle, who provides help including clean syringes to drug users. Collins-Caddle had been spreading the word about an infiltrator in North Carolina’s drug supply: xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that can rot flesh, requiring amputations.  “I never thought there would be a day when I would say there was something that scared me more than fentanyl. But here I am,” said Collins-Caddle, 47 years old. (Wernau, 12/21)