FDA Warns 26 Eye Drop Products Could Cause Dangerous Infections

NPR: The FDA Issues Warning For Eyedrop Products Due To Infection Risk
U.S. health officials are warning consumers to stop using more than two dozen over-the-counter eye drop products due to the potential risk of eye infection that could lead to vision loss. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued the alert for 26 products from the following brands: CVS Health, Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), Rite Aid, Target Up&Up and Velocity Pharma. (Bowman, 10/29)

In other public health alerts —

CBS News: Riverside County Resident Tests Positive For Tuberculosis, According To Health Officials
Riverside County health officials report that a resident has tested positive for active tuberculosis. In a statement released on Friday, officials disclosed that a person who has affiliation with California Baptist University in Riverside tested positive and their potential exposure period was between Sept. 5 and Oct. 16. Despite the infection, they are expected to recover, officials said. (Fioresi, 10/27)

NBC News: Strep Throat Rising, Some Hospitals Report. What To Know About The Fall Uptick
Strep throat is surging among children in some pockets of the country, raising concerns that a shortage of antibiotics to treat it could worsen as the nation heads into winter. An unprecedented number of otherwise healthy adults and children are coming into the emergency room at Henry Ford Medical Center — Fairlane in Dearborn, Michigan, sick with strep, said Dr. Jennifer Stevenson, the head of the emergency department. I've been practicing emergency medicine for 25 years, and I have not seen strep throat as frequently as I have in these past six or eight months," Stevenson said. (Edwards, 10/28)

AP: Syphilis, Other STDs Are On The Rise. States Lost Millions To Treat Them 
State and local health departments across the U.S found out in June they’d be losing the final two years of a $1 billion investment to strengthen the ranks of people who track and try to prevent sexually transmitted diseases — especially the rapid increase of syphilis cases. The fallout was quick: Nevada, which saw a 44 percentage-point jump in congenital syphilis from 2021 to 2022, was supposed to get more than $10 million to bolster its STD program budget. Instead, the state’s STD prevention budget went down by more than 75%, reducing its capacity to respond to syphilis, according to Dawn Cribb at the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health. (Hunter, 10/28)

More health and wellness news —

The New York Times: How A Lucrative Surgery Took Off Online And Disfigured Patients 
The bulge on the side of Peggy Hudson’s belly was the size of a cantaloupe. And it was growing. “I was afraid it would burst,” said Ms. Hudson, 74, a retired airport baggage screener in Ocala, Fla. The painful protrusion was the result of a surgery gone wrong, according to medical records from two doctors she later saw. Using a four-armed robot, a surgeon in 2021 had tried to repair a small hole in the wall of her abdomen, known as a hernia. Rather than closing the hole, the procedure left Ms. Hudson with what is called a “Mickey Mouse hernia,” in which intestines spill out on both sides of the torso like the cartoon character’s ears. (Kliff and Thomas, 10/30)

Bloomberg: Extreme Heat Set To Increase Heart Attack, Stroke Deaths In US
Cardiovascular-related deaths due to extreme heat are expected to nearly triple in the US by mid-century as climate change raises the frequency of very hot days, according to a new study. ... The study, supported by the National Institutes of Health and published Monday in the journal Circulation, predicts that the number of heat-related cardiovascular deaths in the contiguous US will increase from an annual average of 1,651 recorded in recent years to 4,320 by mid-century (defined as from 2036 to 2065). (Liu, 10/30)

CNN: Counting Time Instead Of Calories Also Controls Blood Sugar And Belly Fat
People with type 2 diabetes who followed a time-restricted diet lost belly fat and improved their blood sugar as much as those who counted calories, according to a new randomized clinical trial that followed a group of 75 people for six months. (LaMotte, 10/27)

NPR: Intermittent Fasting Helps With Weight Loss And Blood Sugar For Type 2 Diabetes
Research suggests that simply having less time to eat can lead people to cut down on how much they ultimately consume, without the rigmarole of watching each calorie. Now, new research bolsters the case that intermittent fasting — specifically limiting when you eat to a given window of time during the day — can be a safe and effective strategy for managing Type 2 diabetes. The study, published on Friday in JAMA Open, finds people with Type 2 diabetes can successfully shed weight and manage their blood sugar by eating only within an 8-hour window each day. (Stone, 10/27)

USA Today: Headaches And Migraines: Childhood Trauma Could Be Causing Them
If you suffer from headaches, new research suggests your childhood may be partially to blame. A report published last week in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that people who experienced one or more traumatic events during childhood were 48% more likely to develop headache disorders as an adult. The body holds trauma that can manifest into physical symptoms, the study found. (Rodriguez, 10/30)

CNN: When Daylight Saving Ends, Don’t Be Surprised If You Feel These Health Impacts
When the clock is set back, does your world get turned a little upside down? Daylight Saving Time will end on Sunday, November 5, moving the clocks in most US states back an hour – and that is no small thing for our health, according to Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta, associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. (Holcombe, 10/26)