Month: June 2022

A new multidisciplinary study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center has found that the co-development of three systems, the gut microbiome, respiratory system and immune system, is correlated with a baby’s respiratory health, and an infant can have negative respiratory outcomes if the development of one of these systems is disrupted.

Physicians at Stanford Medicine have developed a way to provide pediatric kidney transplants without immune-suppressing drugs. Their key innovation is a safe method to transplant the donor’s immune system to the patient before surgeons implant the kidney. The medical team has named the two-transplant combination a “dual immune/solid organ transplant,” or DISOT. A scientific paper

With modern life’s high speed and high-stress levels, it is not surprising that psychosomatic disorders are on the rise. Especially common are gut disorders like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) that have been linked to aberrant gut-brain axis communication – abdominal pain-related disorders of gut-brain interaction (AP-DGBI). Study: Risk Factors for Abdominal Pain Disorders of Gut

During recent decades, the rate of infertility among women in the United States has remained largely the same, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Their new analysis of data collected from 1995 and 2019, and published June 14 in the journal Fertility and Sterility, found that infertility is more common among women who are

Pediatric Emergency Department (ED) encounters related to physical abuse decreased by 19 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a multicenter study published in the journal Pediatrics. While encounter rates with lower clinical severity dropped during the pandemic, encounter rates with higher clinical severity remained unchanged. This pattern raises concern for unrecognized harm, as opposed

Horror stories of children trapped in hot cars make headlines, but air pollution and impacts from a changing climate are more constant threats. Children are at higher risk for health changes due to these impacts for a range of reasons, including the way their bodies metabolize toxins, need more air on a per pound basis,

Surface sampling for SARS-CoV-2 RNA has shown promise to detect the exposure of environments to infected individuals shedding the virus who would not otherwise be detected. Now a new study, published in mSystems, an open access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, shows that the methodology used to detect COVID-19 in nasal swabs at

Eating disorders are often misunderstood as lifestyle choices gone awry or oversimplified as the unfortunate result of societal pressures. These misconceptions obscure the fact that eating disorders are serious and potentially fatal mental illnesses that can be treated effectively with early intervention. Mortality rates for people with eating disorders are high compared to other mental

While recommended screenings beginning at age 45 have helped decrease colorectal cancer cases in older adults, cancer rates are continuing to increase in younger populations. Since 2009, the rate of new colorectal cancer diagnoses in patients under age 50 has increased by 2% each year. When I started practice and residency around 2010, I’d uncommonly

Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center continues to rank as the No. 1 children’s hospital in North Carolina by U.S. News & World Report, with nine pediatric specialties ranked among the best in the nation. Duke Children’s also retained a prominent position in the region and nationally – ranking fourth in the southeast and 27th

New research from UT Southwestern suggests that RNA exosomes – the cellular machines that degrade old molecules of RNA – play a key role in the development of B cells, which are critical to the immune system’s ability to protect against infection. The findings, published in Science Immunology, explain why patients with rare mutations in