Health
Trying to Solve a Covid Mystery: Africa’s Low Death Rates
Whereas well being surveillance is weak, he acknowledged, Sierra Leoneans have the latest, horrible expertise of Ebola, which killed 4,000 individuals right here in 2014-16. Since then, he mentioned, residents have been on alert for an infectious agent that may very well be killing individuals of their communities. They might not proceed to pack into occasions if that had been the case, he mentioned.
Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, who’s on the African Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention Covid job power and who was a part of the analysis crew monitoring extra deaths in South Africa, believes the demise toll continentwide might be in step with that of his nation. There may be merely no motive that Gambians or Ethiopians can be much less susceptible to Covid than South Africans, he mentioned.
However he additionally mentioned it was clear that giant numbers of individuals weren’t turning up within the hospital with respiratory misery. The younger inhabitants is clearly a key issue, he mentioned, whereas some older individuals who die of strokes and different Covid-induced causes are usually not being recognized as coronavirus deaths. Many do not make it to the hospital in any respect, and their deaths are usually not registered. However others are usually not falling ailing at charges seen elsewhere, and that’s a thriller that wants unraveling.
“It’s vastly related to issues as fundamental as vaccine growth and remedy,” mentioned Dr. Prabhat Jha, who heads the Centre for World Well being Analysis in Toronto and is main work to investigate causes of demise in Sierra Leone.
Researchers working with Dr. Jha are utilizing novel strategies — similar to in search of any improve in income from obituaries at radio stations in Sierra Leonean cities over the previous two years — to attempt to see if deaths may have risen unnoticed, however he mentioned it was clear there had been no tide of desperately sick individuals.
Some organizations engaged on the Covid vaccination effort say the decrease charges of sickness and demise needs to be driving a rethinking of coverage. John Johnson, vaccination adviser for Medical doctors With out Borders, mentioned that vaccinating 70 p.c of Africans made sense a 12 months in the past when it appeared like vaccines may present long-term immunity and make it doable to finish Covid-19 transmission. However now that it’s clear that safety wanes, collective immunity now not seems achievable. And so an immunization technique that focuses on defending simply probably the most susceptible would arguably be a greater use of sources in a spot similar to Sierra Leone.
Health
Drug Company to Share Revenues With Indigenous People Who Donated Their Genes
When Stephane Castel first met with a group of Māori people and other Pacific Islanders in New Zealand to talk about his drug company’s plans for genetic research, locals worried he might be seeking to profit from the genes of community members without much thought to them.
Instead, Dr. Castel and his colleagues explained, they were aiming to strike an unconventional bargain: In exchange for entrusting them with their genetic heritage, participating communities would receive a share of the company’s revenues. Dr. Castel also vowed not to patent any genes — as many other companies had done — but rather the drugs his company developed from the partnership.
“A lot of people told us this was a crazy idea, and it wouldn’t work,” Dr. Castel said. But five years after that first conversation during an Indigenous health research conference in March 2019, Dr. Castel’s gambit is beginning to pay off for both parties.
On Tuesday, his company, Variant Bio, based in Seattle, announced a $50 million collaboration with the drugmaker Novo Nordisk to develop drugs for metabolic disorders, including diabetes and obesity, using data collected from Indigenous populations. Variant Bio will distribute a portion of those funds to the communities it worked with in nine countries or territories, including the Māori, and will seek to make any medicines that result from its work available to those communities at an affordable price.
Experts on Indigenous genetics said the deal was a positive step for a field that has been plagued by accusations of exploitation and a gulf of mistrust.
“In the past, researchers would enter Indigenous communities with empty promises,” said Krystal Tsosie, a geneticist and bioethicist at Arizona State University who runs a nonprofit genetic repository for Indigenous people. “Variant Bio is the only company, to the best of my knowledge, that has explicitly talked about benefit-sharing as part of their mission.”
The concept for Variant Bio was hatched in a Manhattan bar in August 2018 over drinks between Dr. Castel and Kaja Wasik, who had become friends during their graduate studies in genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island.
Though their laboratory research kept them under the glare of fluorescent lights, they shared a zest for international travel, which they indulged during backpacking trips together in Peru and Chile. They dreamed of building a company that could get them to remote places.
At the time, drugmakers were establishing partnerships with biological repositories such as UK Biobank, which contains biological samples and health records from a half-million people living in Britain, in order to hunt for associations between genes and disease.
But these databases are primarily made up of genes from people of European descent.
“What’s the value of sequencing the 500,001st British person?” Dr. Castel said. “There are only so many insights to find by studying the same group of people.”
He and Dr. Wasik were more enthusiastic about recent findings from underrepresented groups, such as the discovery of novel gene variants affecting metabolism that were first identified in Inuit populations in Greenland.
Such variants may be more common, and consequently easier to identify, in historically isolated populations because they confer some functional benefit to people with a certain diet or lifestyle, or simply because of chance events in their history. Yet they can also serve as promising drug targets that will help a wider swath of the global population.
With $16 million in seed funding from Lux Capital, a venture capital firm in New York City, Dr. Castel and Dr. Wasik quit their jobs and began working full-time for their startup. Dr. Wasik hopped across eight countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific in the company’s first year, while Dr. Castel, for the most part, dutifully built their software platform from his base in the United States.
They enlisted ethical advisers to develop a benefit-sharing model and went on a listening tour. They knew from the get-go they would have to tread carefully.
In 2007, a member of the Karitiana tribe in Brazil told The New York Times that his community had been “duped, lied to and exploited” by scientists who had collected their blood and DNA, which was later sold for $85 per sample. The tribe members, who said they had been wooed with promises of medicines, received nothing.
Ten years later, there was still no consensus about the optimal way to conduct such work. To protect against so-called biopiracy, many countries ratified the Nagoya Protocol under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which requires the “equitable sharing of benefits” emerging from genetic resources. But the protocol excluded human genomic information.
During Dr. Castel’s and Dr. Wasik’s trip to New Zealand in 2019, the researchers and community members were troubled by a previous attempt by U.S. researchers to patent a test for obesity risk based on genetic studies carried out in Samoa. The researchers’ universities did not include their Samoan collaborators on their patent application as co-inventors, nor did they have formal benefit-sharing agreements in place with local institutions. (That patent application has since been abandoned, and the researchers said they always intended to share benefits with their partners.)
One of Variant’s first advisers was Keolu Fox, an outspoken geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, who had been harshly critical of the Samoan research.
“This is an extension of all these other forms of colonialism,” said Dr. Fox, who is Native Hawaiian and joined Dr. Wasik and Dr. Castel on their New Zealand outreach trip. He believed that Variant could lead by example.
In the company’s benefit-sharing program, up to 10 percent of a project’s budget goes toward community programs, typically by funding local organizations.
For example, as part of its New Zealand-based study into the genetic causes of kidney disease and other metabolic disorders in the Māori and other people of Pacific ancestry, the company spent $100,000 to fund several local health organizations along with scholarships and scientific conferences for Indigenous people.
“Before Variant came along, we didn’t do that because we couldn’t afford to do so,” said Tony Merriman, a gout expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has collaborated with the company on two projects in the Pacific region.
Dr. Merriman said that he also appreciated that the company ensured that its findings were shared with the community. In French Polynesia, the company’s research has encouraged increased access to a gout medication after concluding that the local population did not have an elevated risk of a fatal drug reaction that had been observed in certain Asian populations.
The new Novo Nordisk deal kicks off a second, longer-term phase of the benefit-sharing program. Communities will share in a 4 percent slice of Variant’s revenue and, if the company is ever sold or goes public, 4 percent of its equity. That percentage is comparable to the royalties that universities receive for licenses to their patents.
Health
7 signs you might have ADHD and what steps to take
With 15.5 million U.S. adults currently diagnosed with ADHD, there is a growing focus on warning signs of the disorder.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a “developmental disorder marked by persistent symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity,” as defined by the National Institutes of Health.
“ADHD is often misunderstood as just being overly distracted or hyperactive — in reality, it’s a neurodevelopmental condition that affects focus, emotional regulation, time management and impulse control,” Lisa Anderson, a licensed clinical social worker and clinical director at Brooks Healing Center in Tennessee, told Fox News Digital.
ADHD NOW AFFECTS 15.5 MILLION US ADULTS, SAYS NEW CDC REPORT
More than half of the adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder didn’t learn they had the condition until adulthood, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Fox News Digital spoke with multiple mental health experts, who identified the most common signs and symptoms of ADHD in adults.
1. Impulsive behaviors
Adults with ADHD have difficulty managing impulsivity, according to Zoë Kahn, a licensed psychotherapist and ADHD therapist in Pasadena, California.
“This can look like blurting out answers in a classroom setting, interrupting in conversation and difficulty thinking through the long-term consequences of choices,” she told Fox News Digital.
ADHD AFFECTS 1 IN 9 KIDS IN US, NEW REPORT REVEALS: ‘SHAME AND STIGMA’
Impulsivity can also lead to making snap decisions without considering long-term consequences, Anderson added.
“It might also manifest subtly, like overspending on impulse purchases or having trouble waiting your turn in group discussions,” she said.
2. Difficulty focusing or staying on task
Procrastination and difficulty following through on tasks are common signs of ADHD, Anderson noted.
“You might struggle to start tasks, even when vital, or abandon them halfway through,” she said. “You might jump between tasks without finishing anything or focus on smaller, less urgent tasks while the bigger, more critical ones remain untouched.”
“It’s a persistent challenge that affects work, relationships and daily responsibilities.”
It’s not about laziness, Anderson noted, but about feeling overwhelmed by what needs to be done.
“ADHD-related daydreaming is persistent and often disruptive, especially when it happens during crucial tasks or conversations,” she said.
“This isn’t just about occasionally zoning out during a long meeting — it’s a persistent challenge that affects work, relationships and daily responsibilities.”
3. Trouble with time management
People with ADHD may struggle to manage their schedules, often underestimating how long it will take to complete a project or reach a destination.
“Deadlines might sneak up on you, or you might feel perpetually behind on tasks, no matter how early you started,” Anderson told Fox News Digital.
ADHD IN MALES VERSUS FEMALES: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT THE DIFFERENCES IN SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENTS
“This can create a constant cycle of stress and underachievement, leaving you feeling frustrated with yourself.”
4. Mental fatigue
Mental fatigue and burnout are widespread in individuals with ADHD, according to Anderson.
“The ADHD brain often works in overdrive, juggling competing thoughts and struggling to stay on track,” she said.
“This constant effort to stay focused and organized can leave you feeling drained, even after relatively short periods of productivity.”
5. Forgetfulness
Another sign of ADHD in adults is general disorganization, Kahn said, which can lead to an inability to follow through on tasks, meet important deadlines, pay bills on time or keep appointments.
“The ADHD brain often works in overdrive, juggling competing thoughts and struggling to stay on track.”
They may also find themselves misplacing important items, like car keys.
“Adults with ADHD have a hard time finding and keeping focus, which could look like not paying attention in conversation, missing key details, being easily distracted in certain settings, or even focusing on the wrong details,” Kahn added.
6. Inability to sit still
People with ADHD often find themselves fidgeting and feeling generally restless, according to Dr. Michelle Dees, a board-certified psychiatrist at Luxury Psychiatry Clinic in Chicago.
“In adults, this may present as inner disquietude or incomplete calmness,” she told Fox News Digital.
Anderson reiterated this common symptom, noting that in children, it often takes the form of physical hyperactivity.
DEPRESSION COULD BE PREVENTED WITH SPECIFIC DAILY STEP COUNT, STUDY FINDS
“It often transforms into internal restlessness in adults, where you feel like you can’t fully relax or sit still without feeling jittery,” she said. “This constant sense of being ‘on edge’ can become exhausting over time.”
7. Relationship challenges
“Many adults with ADHD have difficulty maintaining relationships with others due to inappropriate social behaviors, such as frequently interrupting, losing interest in conversations, difficulty paying attention and forgetfulness,” Kahn noted.
“You might forget to call friends back or forget about commitments to others, which can cause issues in your relationships.”
Emotional sensitivity often accompanies ADHD, according to Anderson. This can manifest as mood swings, irritability or heightened responses to minor frustrations.
“Many people with ADHD describe feeling like their emotions are more intense and more challenging to control than those of others around them,” she added.
When to seek help
If you’ve experienced several of the above signs and they interfere with your daily life, experts recommend seeking help.
“ADHD is not a flaw nor something to be ashamed of — it’s simply a different way of processing information and interacting with the world,” said Anderson.
The first step is to speak with a health care professional specializing in ADHD, such as a psychologist, psychiatrist or even your primary care physician, she suggested.
“They can provide a proper evaluation and help you explore treatment options, including therapy, medication or lifestyle adjustments,” Anderson noted.
Potential solutions include mindfulness exercises and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which can help people with ADHD to improve their organization, time management and emotion regulation, the same source stated.
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“For many people, medication is also an essential part of managing ADHD, as it can help balance brain chemistry and improve focus,” Anderson added.
Brooke Bardin, a licensed clinical social worker and director of Clinical Quality Assurance in Los Angeles, pointed out that ADHD can sometimes be confused for other conditions.
“ADHD has overlapping symptoms with other disorders and is often comorbid with other diagnoses,” she told Fox News Digital.
Anywhere from 40% to 70% of people with autism spectrum disorder also have ADHD, according to Bardin.
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It can also occur in tandem with learning disorders, anxiety disorders and mood disorders.
“Because of this, it is important to be assessed by a psychiatrist or mental health clinician,” Bardin advised.
“ADHD is not a flaw nor something to be ashamed of — it’s simply a different way of processing information and interacting with the world.”
As you seek out the right support and strategies, Anderson emphasizes the importance of being kind to yourself.
“ADHD isn’t a limitation — it’s a unique way of experiencing the world, and with the right tools, you can learn to harness its strengths and work through its challenges.”
Health
Sugary Drinks Linked to Global Rise in Diabetes, Heart Disease
“This replicates and reinforces what we already know about sugar-sweetened beverages,” he said, “but the findings highlight their severe costs on health and productivity, especially in Africa and Latin America.”
The study detailed intriguing patterns in the consumption of sugary drinks. For example, researchers found that men had modestly higher rates of soda consumption than women. Intake was higher among the well-educated, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. In the Middle East and North Africa by contrast, the study found that soda consumption was higher among adults with comparatively lower levels of education.South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia had the lowest rates of excess cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes linked to sugary drink consumption, the study found, though the authors noted that the data did not include sugar-sweetened tea and coffee, items that are popular in those parts of the world.
Laura Lara-Castor, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Washington and another lead author of the Nature study, said the higher rates of consumption among educated adults in sub-Saharan Africa reflected in part the aspirational lure of soft drink brands associated with Western tastes and style — a result of the sophisticated and well-funded advertising campaigns by multinational beverage companies.
“Consuming these drinks is often a mark of status,” she said.
Despite the study’s grim findings, Dr. Lara-Castor and the other authors said the data also contained reasons for hope. Soda consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean is already beginning to decline, thanks in part to policies like soda taxes, marketing restrictions and package labels that seek to educate consumers about the dangers of products high in added sugar. (In the United States, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has dropped since its peak in 2000 but those declines have largely plateaued in recent years.)
More than 80 countries have adopted measures aimed at decreasing sugary drink consumption.
Paula Johns, executive director of ACT Health Promotion, an advocacy group in Brazil, said the Nature study showed that education alone was not enough to dampen consumer zeal for sweetened drinks. In recent years, she said that Brazil had adopted a number of policies that are beginning to dent the nation’s love affair with highly processed food and sugary drinks. They include better school-meal programs, bold front-of-package warnings and a new excise tax on beverages with added sugar.
“There’s no magic bullet,” she said. “But all these policies, taken together, help send the message to the public that sugar-sweetened beverages are really bad for your health.”
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