Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
Each week, KFF Health News finds longer stories for you to read. Today's selections are on alpha-gal syndrome, "low T," the role frogs play in human health, and more.
The New York Times:
After A Mysterious Death, A Family’s Quest For Answers Leads To A Tick
A JetBlue pilot’s illness looked like food poisoning, but it was actually an increasingly common tick-borne meat allergy that can be fatal. (Goldstein, 11/20)
Stat:
Why Men Are Flocking To Dubious Online Clinics For Testosterone Therapy
Patients with ‘low T’ complain they often can’t get prescriptions from their own doctors. (Merelli, 11/21)
AP:
What Happens When Your Immune System Hijacks Your Brain
“My year of unraveling” is how a despairing Christy Morrill described nightmarish months when his immune system hijacked his brain. What’s called autoimmune encephalitis attacks the organ that makes us “us,” and it can appear out of the blue. (Neergaard and Lum, 11/20)
Stat:
Brain Organoid Scientists Worried By Push Into Biocomputing
For the brain organoids in Lena Smirnova’s lab at Johns Hopkins University, there comes a time in their short lives when they must graduate from the cozy bath of the bioreactor, leave the warm salty broth behind and be plopped onto a silicon chip laced with microelectrodes. From there, these tiny white spheres of human tissue can simultaneously send and receive electrical signals that, once decoded by a computer, will show how the cells inside them are communicating with each other as they respond to their new environments. (Molteni, 11/17)
The Washington Post:
How A Frog Apocalypse Led To A Rise In Malaria In Humans
An emerging area of research is uncovering hidden links between nature and human health. (Grandoni and Mara, 11/14)
