Health roundup: Toddler’s arm gets caught in treadmill, vaping may worsen COVID symptoms, and more
A child’s arm got caught in the family’s treadmill. It could have been worse.
One moment, a family is eating dinner together like usual. Soon after, they go off to do other things before being brought back together by a child’s scream.
That is what unfolded in the Beckman home in State College, Pa., one October evening three months ago. The youngest of the family’s three children, 3-year-old Hazel, suffered a serious friction burn as her arm got trapped in an active home treadmill.
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Vaping might worsen COVID-19 symptoms
If you vape and catch COVID-19, you may feel a whole lot worse than people who come down with the virus but don’t use electronic cigarettes, researchers say.
When compared to folks with COVID-19 who didn’t use e-cigarettes, those who did were more likely to report chest pain, chills, headaches, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and the loss of smell or taste.
What’s more, folks who vaped and smoked tobacco reported higher rates of labored breathing and more emergency department visits when they contracted COVID-19, the new study findings showed.
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Study shows Black men are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as white men
Even in a setting where white and Black people have equal access to medical care, Black Americans fare worse than whites in terms of prostate cancer, new research shows.
A review of nearly 8 million men seen at America’s Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals found that Black veterans had nearly twice the incidence of localized and advanced prostate cancer as white men.
But there was a glimmer of good news: When they had the same treatment, Black and white men had similar outcomes.
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Exposing kids to safe levels of peanut when young might prevent allergy
Some kids might be able to get over their peanut allergy if they start immunotherapy while they’re still toddlers, a major new clinical trial reports.
In the trial, a group of 1- to 3-year-olds with severe peanut allergies were safely fed gradually increasing daily doses of a peanut protein flour to help accustom their immune systems to the allergen.
About one in five wound up able to eat a handful of peanuts without an allergic reaction, even after they’d been off their therapy for six months, researchers reported Jan. 22 in The Lancet.
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Can CBD help curb COVID? Maybe, but more study is needed
Cannabidiol, a compound derived from marijuana, appears to show promise in blocking replication of the COVID-19 virus and preventing its spread, lab and animal studies show.
CBD inhibited the ability of the coronavirus to spread in human lung cell samples, and also suppressed COVID-19 infection in the lungs and nasal passages of lab mice. Although research in animals doesn’t always pan out in humans, the success of CBD may not be limited to the lab.
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