Health | WPN World People News

Immunofluorescent image of immune cells surrounding a skin wound, enriched in the beneficial bacteria S. epidermidis.

The number of privately insured U.S. women ages 15-44 years who filled a prescription for a medicine to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increased 344 percent between 2003 and 2015, according to a report in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

Overall, cigarette smoking among U.S. adults (aged ≥18 years) declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.5 percent in 2016. Yet, nearly 38 million American adults smoked cigarettes (“every day” or “some days”) in 2016, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on January 18.

A female Aedes mosquito.

We are often warned of the dangers of high levels of salt in our diet, yet the risks of salt consumption and the effects of salt on the body, including the brain, are not entirely clear. In a new mouse study, scientists link changes in the gut caused by a high-salt diet to impaired blood flow in the brain. This reduced blood flow can eventually lead to impaired cognition that could be reversed by changing back to a normal diet.

Memory gene acts like a virus: Two independent teams of NIH-funded researchers discovered that the Arc gene can package its genetic material in a virus-like shell for delivery to nearby cells.

Researchers have discovered that genetic variations in the anatomy of the lungs could serve as indicators to help identify people who have low, but stable, lung function early in life, and those who are particularly at risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) because of a smoke-induced decline in lung function. The results of the study, which was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

An international science team has developed an innovative therapeutic complex based on multi-layer polymer nano-structures of superoxide dismutase (SOD). The new substance can be used to effectively rehabilitate patients after acute spinal injuries, strokes, and heart attacks.

UNICEF is on the ground in Bangladesh, immunizing Rohingya refugee children to fight the spread of disease, and delivering life-saving nutrition to the tens of thousands of children who are malnourished.

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a T lymphocyte. The engineering of lymphocytes, white blood cells, can be used in the targeted killing of cancer cells.