A study of a gateway receptor for SARS-CoV-2 led by Walter Lukiw, PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, Neurology and Ophthalmology at LSU Health New Orleans’ Neuroscience Center of Excellence and School of Medicine, may help explain the wide variety of symptoms and organs involved with SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19. The results suggest that a multi-organ infection with SARS-CoV-2 may be via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, which is found almost everywhere throughout the body. The findings are published in the journal Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology.

The figures are based on tests on people in their homes, whether they have symptoms or not.

The northern quoll, one of Australia’s most adorable and endangered native carnivores, appears to be adapted to dramatically different landscapes — which may be key to the species’ survival.

They would include midwives, physiotherapists and possibly even dentists, the government says.

• Girls with anorexia tend not to achieve their potential height in adulthood
• Additionally, height impairment is a marker for other complications of anorexia nervosa 
• Early diagnosis and treatment could prevent this from happening

Girls with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa may have stunted growth, new research suggests.

People with anorexia nervosa believe they weigh too much, even if they’re underweight. They may lose a dangerous amount of weight by dieting, exercising excessively, or binge-eating and purging.

“Our findings emphasise the importance of early and intensive intervention aiming at normalisation of body weight, which may result in improved growth and allow patients to reach their full height potential,” said researcher Dr Dalit Modan-Moses of Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel.

Height impairment a marker

For the report, the researchers studied 255 girls around age 15 who were hospitalised for anorexia nervosa.

The investigators measured the patients’ height at the time of hospitalisation and again at adulthood. The women’s adult height was much shorter than expected compared with the genetic potential gauged by their parents’ height, the study authors said.

“We suggest that the height impairment is a marker for other complications of anorexia nervosa affecting the person’s overall health in several aspects: bone health, cognitive [mental] function, and problems with pregnancy and childbirth later in life. Early diagnosis and treatment could prevent, or at least reduce, the risk of these complications,” Modan-Moses said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

“This study may have implications for the management of malnutrition in adolescents with other chronic diseases in order to achieve optimal adult height and bone health,” Modan-Moses added.

The report was published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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Figures also show 14 Welsh communities have not registered any deaths involving Covid-19.

• Regular hand-cleaning is essential to prevent the spread of Covid-19
• Soaps and hand sanitisers can, however, irritate the skins of people with eczema
• An American expert recommends regular application of moisturiser to prevent skin drying out

Hand-washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and other viruses, but for people with skin conditions like eczema, lathering up frequently can lead to dryness, cracking, itchiness, pain and even an infection.

If you’re struggling to balance pandemic hand-washing and skin conditions, Dr Jonathan Silverberg, a dermatologist at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., offers some advice.

• Regular washing is better than hand sanitiser: When you cleanse with soap and water, then immediately apply moisturiser, you can “offset much of the drying effects of hand-washing”, Silverberg said in a news release from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. He recommends carrying a pocket tube of moisturiser so you can apply it on the go.
• Avoid antiseptic and antibacterial soaps: You may not need them, as long as you scrub thoroughly with soap for at least 20 seconds and then rinse.
• Moisturise properly: After washing, pat your hands until they are mostly dry, using a paper towel or tissue. “Once mostly dry, [i.e., your skin is still a little damp], apply a generous amount of moisturiser to coat the entire surface of your hands and fingers,” Silverberg said.
• Beware of gloves plus sanitiser: To avoid irritation from hand-washing, some people with skin conditions wear disposable gloves and then use sanitiser on them – an approach Silverberg does not recommend. “When we apply hand sanitiser on our bare skin, we can feel if we covered the entire surface of the hands and fingers,” he said. “But when wearing gloves, we limit the ability to feel this and might miss some spots on the gloves and then accidentally carry some germs.” It makes more sense to change gloves and/or wash or sanitise hands often, Silverberg said.
• Wear gloves when cleaning: Cleaning products are especially harsh on the skin. “People should always wear gloves when using antiseptic wipes and cleaning products,” Silverberg said.
• Sterilise containers: If you carry bottles of soap and moisturiser with you, clean and sterilise the containers to remove harmful germs. And remember: Moisturiser should not be applied unless hands are clean, to prevent contaminating the product.

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Severe Covid-19 is rare and dying from it exceptionally rare, a study of UK hospital data finds.

• More than 250 000 people in the United States have weight-loss surgery every year
• Gastric bypass surgery has been assumed to be the main cause of better glucose control
• A new study, however, indicates that weight loss by any means has the same results

The metabolic benefits of weight loss in severely obese people are the same whether they lose excess pounds through dieting or surgery, a new study says.

That suggests that weight loss alone, not any effects of weight-loss (bariatric) surgery, is responsible for metabolic improvements such as better blood sugar control and diabetes remission, according to researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“It has been presumed that gastric bypass surgery has therapeutic, metabolic effects that result in better glucose control and even remission of diabetes beyond the effects expected from weight loss alone,” said principal investigator Dr Samuel Klein, director of the university’s Center for Human Nutrition. “But we found gastric bypass surgery improves metabolic function by causing weight loss.”

Similar improvements

He said there were no differences in reduction of diabetes medications or in rates of diabetes remission between surgery patients and those who lose the same amount of weight through dieting alone.

The study included 22 severely obese adults with diabetes who lost 18% of their body weight after gastric bypass surgery or through diet alone. Each group had 11 patients.

After their weight loss, both groups showed similar improvements in metabolism, including lower blood sugar throughout the day; better insulin action in liver, muscle and fat tissue, and reduced need for insulin and other diabetes medications.

The findings were published on 20 August in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Unique therapeutic effects

“It has been suggested that weight loss induced by gastric bypass surgery is different from weight loss induced by a low-calorie diet, based on the fact that certain factors – such as increased bile acid concentrations, decreased branched-chain amino acid concentrations and alterations in the gut microbiome – are different in surgery patients and may be responsible for the unique therapeutic effects of gastric bypass surgery,” Klein said in a university news release.

Researchers found that all of those factors were, in fact, different in the two groups.

“Yet,” Klein pointed out, “those changes were not associated with any physiologically or clinically important metabolic benefits.”

Each year more than 250 000 people in the United States have weight-loss surgery.

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There’s to be a new effort to understand how the immune system responds to Covid-19.