Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: Noticing Cardiac Arrest; Bug Hunting; And The Science Of Cupping
The Atlantic: Why Don't Doctors Recognize Cardiac Arrest?
When people’s hearts stop beating, they lose consciousness in seconds. If standing, they fall. If sitting, they slump over. Their bodies jerk, and reflexively, they gasp. Those breaths are deceptive. They can trick physicians and nurses into thinking a hospital patient is experiencing a seizure, not cardiac arrest. And that misinterpretation can delay a shot at resuscitation. (Robin Tricoles, 8/8)
Stat: Deep In The Night, Hunting Deadly Bugs In The Name Of Science
In Latin America, Chagas is a public health crisis: millions have the disease, and only 1 percent of them get adequate treatment. In the United States, the illness is rare, and transmission even more so: Most of the estimated 300,000 people who are infected caught the parasite from a kissing bug in Latin America. Yet those official statistics may be low, because Chagas is often overlooked and misdiagnosed by American doctors. And the most basic facts about its local transmission — including which strains of parasites are transmitted by which species of kissing bug in which parts of the southern US — remain largely unknown. (Boodman, 8/10)
Vox: Michael Phelps Uses Cupping To Ease His Muscle Pain. What Does Science Say?
When Michael Phelps took to the water to swim in the 4x100-meter relay Sunday, many noticed weird purple circles covering his right shoulder. The dots are the result of cupping, the latest alternative therapy elite athletes are using to try to recover faster and perform better. But as with a lot of alternative therapies, the science on these medicinal hickeys is pretty inconclusive, suggesting you may not need to sprint off to a cupping practitioner to try it out on your sore muscles. (Brian Resnick, 8/8)
The New Yorker: The Social Network In Your Gut
In Fiji, [Ilana] Brito sought to understand not only how bacteria move between human communities but also how genes move between bacterial communities. Unlike most human cells, bacteria have a flexible genome, meaning that they can pick up stretches of genetic material from viruses, other bacteria, or dustings of DNA in their immediate environment. (Wudan Yan, 8/9)
Vox: Rio 2016: Why Being As Flexible As An Olympic Gymnast Isn’t Necessarily A Good Thing
If you did the President’s Challenge Sit and Reach test in gym class, you probably learned that flexibility is something to strive for. Or if you ever played a sport, you were likely taught that you should always stretch to prevent injuries and reduce soreness. But it turns out many of the benefits of flexibility and stretching have been overstated. (Julia Belluz, 8/10)
