Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Significant Link Between Miscarriages And Air Pollution Adds Urgency For Cities To Address Problem
The New York Times: Air Pollution Is Linked To Miscarriages In China, Study Finds
Researchers in China have found a significant link between air pollution and the risk of miscarriage, according to a new scientific paper released on Monday. While air pollution is connected to a greater risk of respiratory diseases, strokes and heart attacks, the new findings could add more urgency to Beijing’s efforts to curb the problem, which has long plagued Chinese cities. Faced with a rapidly aging population, the government has been trying to increase the national birthrate, which dropped last year to the lowest level since 1949. (Qin, 10/14)
CNN: Exposure To Pollution Linked To 'Silent Miscarriages'
Other research has found that pollution can breach a mother's placenta and potentially reach fetuses in the womb, raising the possibility of miscarriage or, if the woman is able to carry the baby to term, future health problems for the child. A 2017 study of women in London found that exposure to pollution from traffic led to giving birth to low birth weight babies. Babies born with a low birth weight are at a much greater risk of dying than healthy weight babies and face a much greater risk of chronic disease later in life, such as cardiovascular problems. (Christensen, 10/14)
The Associated Press: Where You Die Can Affect Your Chance Of Being An Organ Donor
If Roland Henry had died in a different part of the country, his organs might have been recovered. And lives could have been saved. But the local organ collection agency said no. It gave no reason, no explanation to his family, though the Connecticut man appeared to be a well-qualified donor despite advancing age: He died in a hospital, on a ventilator, previously healthy until a car crash that led to a stroke. (10/14)
The New York Times: The New Makers Of Plant-Based Meat? Big Meat Companies
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, scrappy start-ups that share a penchant for superlatives and a commitment to protecting the environment, have dominated the relatively new market for vegetarian food that looks and tastes like meat. But with plant-based burgers, sausages and chicken increasingly popular and available in fast-food restaurants and grocery stores across the United States, a new group of companies has started making meatless meat: the food conglomerates and meat producers that Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods originally set out to disrupt. (Yaffe-Bellany, 10/14)
The Wall Street Journal: A New Way To Treat Hot Flashes—With Talk Therapy
A promising new treatment for menopause symptoms is using psychological techniques to change how women experience hot flashes. In a 12-week program at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton here, women learn to challenge the thoughts that can make hot flashes feel worse (everyone can see I’m having one) and replace them with more helpful ones (most likely no one will notice and they usually pass within a few minutes). They learn behavioral strategies like deep breathing to quell anxiety that can make hot flashes more distressing. (Petersen, 10/14)
The New York Times: Rx For Doctors: Stop With The Urine Tests
It’s such a common routine in a doctor’s office or clinic or hospital that patients tend to comply without thinking: Step on the scale, roll up your sleeve for the blood pressure cuff, urinate into a cup. But that last request should prompt questions, at the least. The urine test is the first step into what’s sometimes called “the culture of culturing.” (Span, 10/14)
The New York Times: CBD Or THC? Common Drug Test Can’t Tell The Difference
In June of 2018, Mark Pennington received troubling news from his ex-girlfriend, with whom he shared custody of their 2-year-old son. She had taken a hair follicle from the boy, she said, and had it analyzed at a lab. A drug test had returned positive for THC, the intoxicating compound in marijuana; evidently their son had been exposed to it, presumably in Mr. Pennington’s presence. He was told that, from then on, he would be permitted to see the child only once a week, and under supervision. (Lewis, 10/15)
North Carolina Health News: NC Study: AM Waves May Cure Liver Cancer
Radio waves can entertain and inform you when driving around, but tweak the frequency and amplitude just right and it could save lives, according to a new study by researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Health. Researchers are working on getting FDA approval for a treatment device that kills tumor cells of hepatocellular carcinoma, a kind of liver cancer, by using amplitude-modulated (AM) radio waves–the same type of varying-height waves that transmit to car radios. (Duong, 10/15)
The New York Times: Improve Your Bedtime Routine With These Five Luxurious Tips
When my better angels are in charge of my schedule — instead of the insatiable gremlin that won’t get off Instagram — I end the day by starting my bedtime routine: lighting candles; eating early, (three-ish hours before going to sleep, in a knockoff version of intermittent fasting, it makes for better digestion and for me, fewer nightmares); molting daytime clothes and obligations (no screens, so no social media, no texting, no email), and then floating around for 20 minutes of Vedic meditation; some at-home hypnotherapy; a little journaling; reading a book that asks nothing of me; and listing five “happinesses,” just some small things that I want to keep close. (Carraway, 10/15)
The Washington Post: Regularly Working Long Hours Is Linked To Increase Stroke Risk
For people who regularly work long hours — defined as more than 10 hours a day for at least 50 days a year — a recent study suggests an increased risk of stroke. According to research published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke, working such long hours is associated with 29 percent greater risk stroke than are those who work less. (Searing, 10/14)
