Tag Archives: Health
Medical: “Colonoscopies – What You Need To Know” (Cleveland Clinic Video)
A colonoscopy is a test that lets your healthcare provider look inside your colon and rectum. Here is a brief overview of what you need to know for your colonoscopy.
Health: “How Coronavirus / Covid-19 Became A Global Pandemic” (WSJ Video)
On Dec. 1, 2019, a patient in Wuhan, China, started showing symptoms of what doctors determined was a new coronavirus. Since then, the virus has spread to infect more than 100,000 people. Here’s how the virus grew to a global pandemic. Photo illustration: Carter McCall/WSJ
Health Update: The First Clinical Trial Of A “Coronavirus / Covid-19” Vaccine Begins (NIH)
From the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (March 17, 2020):
“Finding a safe and effective vaccine to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2 is an urgent public health priority,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “This Phase 1 study, launched in record speed, is an important first step toward achieving that goal.”
The vaccine is called mRNA-1273 and was developed by NIAID scientists and their collaborators at the biotechnology company Moderna, Inc., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) supported the manufacturing of the vaccine candidate for the Phase 1 clinical trial.
A Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating an investigational vaccine designed to protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has begun at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is funding the trial. KPWHRI is part of NIAID’s Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium. The open-label trial will enroll 45 healthy adult volunteers ages 18 to 55 years over approximately 6 weeks. The first participant received the investigational vaccine today.
The study is evaluating different doses of the experimental vaccine for safety and its ability to induce an immune response in participants. This is the first of multiple steps in the clinical trial process for evaluating the potential benefit of the vaccine.
Study: Maintaining Weight Loss Tied To Healthier Eating Routines Formed Over Two-Year Period
From a New York Times online article (March 16, 2020):
“Maintaining weight loss can get easier over time. Over time, less intentional effort, though not no effort, is needed to be successful. After about two years, healthy eating habits become part of the routine. Healthy choices become more automatic the longer people continue to make them. They feel weird when they don’t.”
Among the useful strategies identified in the new study is to keep lower calorie foods like fruits and vegetables more accessible. “We eat what we see,” Dr. Phelan noted. The corollary is equally important: keep high-calorie, less nourishing foods relatively inaccessible and out of sight if not out of the house entirely.
The new study led by Dr. Phelan, professor of kinesiology and public health at California Polytechnic State University, identified habits and strategies that can be keys to success for millions. Yes, like most sensible weight-loss plans, they involve healthful eating and regular physical activity. But they also include important self-monitoring practices and nonpunitive coping measures that can be the crucial to long-term weight management.
Health Update: “New Coronavirus Test” From Johns Hopkins Medicine
New Coronavirus test developed by Johns Hopkins microbiologists Karen Carroll and Heba Mostafa, look to test as many as 1,000 suspected Covid-19 cases per day in the Johns Hopkins Health System.
Health Facts: “Do The Five” – “Help Stop Coronavirus”

1. HANDS Wash them often
2. ELBOW Cough into it
3. FACE Don’t touch it
4. FEET Stay 3 ft from other people
5. FEEL sick? Stay home
Health Video: “10 Things You Can Do To Manage “Coronavirus / Covid-19” Treatment At Home (CDC)
If you are sick with COVID-19 or suspect you are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, follow the steps below to help prevent the disease from spreading to people in your home and community.
Medical Health Videos: “Symptoms Of Colon Cancer” (Mayo Clinic)
The team at Mayo Clinic prefer to see patients screened for colorectal cancer before they show symptoms.
In this Podcast Extra, we hear from epidemiologists, genomicists and social scientists about how they’re working to tackle the coronavirus and what they’ve learned so far.
Monocle 24 “The Urbanist” discusses the impact that quarantines can have on cities and what lessons city planners can learn when an outbreak causes borders to close. Here is a report from the ground on the changing nature of city life in Milan.