Patients Who Receive Transplants Often Have To Take Damaging Anti-Rejection Meds Their Whole Lives. Scientists Are Hoping To Change That.

The New York Times: Scientists Are Teaching The Body To Accept New Organs
It was not the most ominous sign of health trouble, just a nosebleed that would not stop. So in February 2017, Michael Schaffer, who is 60 and lives near Pittsburgh, went first to a local emergency room, then to a hospital where a doctor finally succeeded in cauterizing a tiny cut in his nostril. Then the doctor told Mr. Schaffer something he never expected to hear: “You need a liver transplant.” (Kolata, 1/22)

The New York Times: Yoga And Veterans: A Different Kind Of Warrior
To casual observers of either military service or the practice of yoga, the path from Oorah to Om may not seem obvious. But the intersection of yogi and veteran is natural if unexpected, beginning with the five classic yoga poses known as warriors. While veterans make up a small percentage of yoga instructors, their ranks are growing. Many members of the military now often include yoga — sometimes taught by veterans — as an element of their workout routine, and veterans turn to the practice for therapeutic applications. The Department of Veterans Affairs has successfully used yoga to help treat opioid addiction and post-traumatic stress. (Steinhauer, 1/19)

The New York Times: A Rising Threat To Pregnant Women: Syphilis
Syphilis continues to make a dismaying comeback in the United States. Between 2012 and 2016, the rate of primary and secondary syphilis among women increased 111 percent. Over the same period, the rate of congenital syphilis increased by 87 percent. The sexually transmitted disease is caused by infection with the bacterium Treponema pallidum. The bacterium also can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy or birth. (Bakalar, 1/21)

The Washington Post: Suicides Among Veterinarians Has Become A Growing Problem
Pushed to the brink by mounting debt, compassion fatigue and social media attacks from angry pet owners, veterinarians are committing suicide at rates higher than the general population, often killing themselves with drugs meant for their patients. On a brisk fall evening in Elizabeth City, N.C., Robin Stamey sat in her bed and prepared to take her own life. (Leffler, 1/19)

The Washington Post: Vaginal Mesh Has Caused Health Problems Including Chronic Inflammation, Scarring, Infection And Pain That Can Resist Treatment.
Regina Stepherson needed surgery for rectocele, a prolapse of the wall between the rectum and the vagina. Her surgeons said that her bladder also needed to be lifted and did so with vaginal mesh, a surgical mesh used to reinforce the bladder. Following the surgery in 2010, Stepherson, then 48. said she suffered debilitating symptoms for two years. An active woman who rode horses, Stepherson said she had constant pain, trouble walking, fevers off and on, weight loss, nausea and lethargy after the surgery. She spent days sitting on the couch, she said. (Berger, 1/20)

The New York Times: Your Sweat Will See You Now
Someday soon, perhaps within a year, you’ll be able to slap a soft, stretchy patch on to your arm that tells you if you’re dehydrated. Or that your electrolytes are dangerously out of balance. Or even that you have diabetes. Fitness trackers such as Fitbit and Apple Watch already track step counts, heart rate and sleep rhythms. But they tend to be rigid and bulky, and mostly gather mechanical metrics, rather than assess a person’s underlying biology. (Mandavilli, 1/18)

PBS NewsHour: Consumption Of Marijuana Edibles Rises Amidst Scarce Research Into Their Health Impact
As more states legalize recreational use of marijuana, edible forms of the drug are also becoming increasingly popular. But little research has been done on potential complications of consuming the substance, and some scientists believe they can cause hallucinogenic reactions. (Gliha, 1/21)

The Wall Street Journal: High Cholesterol? It Must Be January
Is your cholesterol high? The answer may depend on whether it’s January or June. An observational study of 25,764 Danes found that after gorging on traditional holiday foods throughout December, their bloodstreams were swimming with low-density-lipoprotein—the “bad” cholesterol commonly known as LDL. (McGinty, 1/18)

The Washington Post: Semen Injection: A Man Tried To Treat His Back Pain With His Semen
A 33-year-old man who had been suffering from back pain decided to treat himself by resorting to an unusual remedy not supported by scientific research: he injected himself with a dose of his own semen every month for a year and a half. The “alternative therapy” baffled doctors at Tallaght University Hospital in Dublin, where the man showed up recently with severe back pain and a swollen arm, according to a case report published this month in the Irish Medical Journal. (Phillips, 1/20)

WBUR: Think You're Allergic To Penicillin? Maybe Not, Specialists Say, And That's Worth Knowing
Specialists at Massachusetts General Hospital and around the country are calling for more testing of whether patients are really allergic, because research finds that most who've been told in the past that they are allergic to penicillin actually are not. And that matters for their care. (Goldberg, 1/18)

WBUR: She Wanted To Be The Perfect Mom, Then Landed In A Psychiatric Unit
California researchers just finished their first big study on maternal suicides. The state's public health department hasn't published the findings yet, KQED was able to review some of the data: 99 new moms in the state died by suicide over a 10-year period. The investigators determined that of those 99 suicides, 98 were preventable. (Dembosky, 1/19)

KCUR: A Decades-Old Approach To Prevent Gunshot Wounds Is Catching On In Hospitals Around The U.S. 
The approach is designed to offer a menu of resources and support to gunshot victims, like educational support, job training and mental health services. It’s all in the hopes that they won’t end up back in the Emergency Room — or worse. Grady’s hospital intervention program is called PIVOT, and it’s about six months old. ...For now, the PIVOT outreach is reserved for people shot in a select set of zip-codes, based on data from the Atlanta Police Department. They are all predominantly black neighborhoods with median incomes significantly lower than average for metro Atlanta. PIVOT is looking to follow a well-trodden path. (Hagen, 1/18)

The New York Times: Stuck And Stressed: The Health Costs Of Traffic
Sometimes the seemingly small things in life can be major stressors. Nobody likes sitting in traffic, for example. According to one study, commuting is one of the least pleasant things we do. But it’s not just an annoying time waster — there’s a case that it’s a public health issue. (Frakt, 1/21)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Meat, Poultry Recalls Nearly Double Since 2013, Study Finds
Recalls of food and poultry products have increased significantly since the nation’s last major food safety law, the Food Safety Modernization Act, passed in 2011. Recent high-profile recalls — from romaine lettuce to eggs to beef — reveals how fundamental flaws in our current food safety system have led to a jump in these recalls since 2013, a new report from the Public Interest Research Groups found. (Clanton, 1/18)

The Washington Post: Women Seem To Need More Cooling During And After Exercise
When the body heats up during exercise, it copes in several ways. There are involuntary systems, such as sweating that help it cool off, and voluntary measures, such as dousing with cold water or wearing (and switching) hats filled with ice, as American Galen Rupp did every five kilometers during the Rio 2016 Olympic marathon. (He won a bronze medal.) Voluntary actions are known as “thermal behavior.” (Cimons, 1/19)

The New York Times: Can A Nice Doctor Make Treatments More Effective?
In the age of the internet, it’s easier than ever to pull together lots of information to find the best doctor. And if you’re like most patients, the metric you probably rely on most is the doctor’s credentials. Where did she go to school? How many patients has he treated with this condition? You might also read some Yelp reviews about how nice this doctor is; how friendly and how caring. But all that probably seems secondary to the doctor’s skills; sure, it would be great to have a doctor whom you actually like, but that’s not going to influence your health the way the doctor’s competence will. (Howe and Leibowitz, 1/22)

Stat: A Spot Of Good News In Ebola Crisis: Vaccine Supplies Are Expected To Last
There’s some good news related to an Ebola crisis that has offered very little up until now. The World Health Organization now predicts there are adequate supplies of an experimental Ebola vaccine to control the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I believe we will have enough vaccine to stop this outbreak unless something very dramatic changes,” Dr. Peter Salama, WHO’s deputy director-general of emergency preparedness and response, told STAT. (Branswell, 1/22)

The New York Times: Helping Children Conquer Chronic Pain
Acute pain that calls out to warn you — “Hey, don’t walk on this broken leg!” — may be unpleasant, but it’s also protective. That acute pain is letting you know that a part of your body needs to heal, or in some other way needs extra attention, said Dr. Neil Schechter, the director of the chronic pain clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital. That’s very different, he said, from chronic pain that goes on over the course of months, whether abdominal pain or headache or musculoskeletal — it may persist and be incapacitating, because “the pain has become the disease.” (Klass, 1/21)