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NEWS:
NIH-Funded Studies Reveal Credible Estimates For Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Disorder Prevalence
New National Institutes of Health-funded research shows that the prevalence of brain changes from Limbic-predominant Age-related TDP-43 Encephalopathy (LATE) may be roughly 40% in older adults and as high as 50% in people with Alzheimer’s disease. These credible estimates come from 13 community- and population-based studies from five countries and were published today in the journal Acta Neuropathologica.
LATE is a recently recognized brain disorder that mimics clinical features of Alzheimer’s, which is the most common form of dementia. People who have LATE sometimes also have one or more coexisting brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, and in those cases, they are more likely to have worse symptoms.
This new research included autopsy, genetic, and clinical data from 6,196 study participants and adds to a growing body of evidence that a variety of disorders and disease processes contrib
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Is My Scratchy Throat Allergies or Omicron?
Around 60 million Americans suffer from itching, coughing, and sneezing caused by seasonal allergies each spring, according to the CDC. And while these symptoms aren’t typically a cause for concern, a runny nose and sore throat are also key symptoms of the now-dominant omicron subvariant of COVID-19, BA.2, leaving many people to wonder if their symptoms are simply allergies, or COVID-19.
Why Are These Symptoms So Similar?
A woman sits on a couch wrapped in a blanket and holds a tissue up to her nose
The similarities in symptoms can be confusing, even frustrating, to some people, especially when they are worried about infecting other people, and determining if they should be isolating.
Scott Feldman, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Clinical Medicine in the division of Allergy and Immunology in the Perelman School of Medicine, explains that producing mucus, sneezing, and coughing are
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Study: Medicine for Inflammatory Bowel Disease May Protect Against Severe COVID-19
Getting the COVID-19 vaccination strengthened one type of immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients even though they were taking immunosuppressant medication, according to investigators at Cedars-Sinai.
The findings of two studies focused on this topic have been published in the journals IBD, of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, and Frontiers in Immunology.
"We found that with COVID-19 vaccination most of the main immunosuppressive treatments for IBD preserved the T-cell response, with one notable exception: anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drug therapy. This biologic treatment actually elevated T-cell activity in the vaccinated patients. We think this may help protect them from severe disease after breakthrough infection," said Gil Melmed, MD, principal investigator of the study and director of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Resea
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Cedars-Sinai Investigators Validate the Accuracy of Novel Stool Imaging via Smartphone
An innovative mobile phone application was found to be as good as expert gastroenterologists at characterizing stool specimens, according to a study by Cedars-Sinai. The artificial intelligence (AI) used in the smartphone app also outperformed reports by patients describing their stool specimens.
Stool reporting by patients, usually guided by the Bristol Stool Scale, is crucial to helping physicians evaluate symptoms for diagnosis or for judging the effectiveness of medications.
"Sometimes patients don’t know what is normal or abnormal when trying to characterize a bowel movement. This app takes out the guesswork by using AI, not patient input, to process the images taken by the smartphone," said principal investigator of the study Mark Pimentel, MD, executive director of the Medically Associated Science and Technology Program at Cedars-Sinai.
"The mobile app produced more accur
