Death toll from Legionnaires’ disease up to 12, NYC Mayor says

The reported number of deaths from the largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City has increased from 10 to 12, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press conference Monday. The total number of Legionnaires’ cases is now 113, up from 101 on Friday. Of those patients who have been hospitalized, 76 had been discharged as of Monday afternoon, de Blasio said.

De Blasio confirmed that the bacteria had also been found in an additional two cooling towers in the neighborhood, and officials said a total of 12 of 39 cooling towers in the South Bronx had been impacted. Those cooling towers, which are used to cool down large air conditioning units, have been disinfected or would be by the end of the day Monday, the mayor said. 

City officials confirmed Friday that five Bronx buildings tested positive for the bacteria, and on Saturday that an additional five also tested positive, including two courthouses, a post office and a high school. Those buildings have already had their cooling towers cleaned and do not appear to pose any danger to locals, health officials said.

“We are still several days away from getting final results of those tests that will allow us to make firmer conclusions, but everything that we know today points to one or more of those five original sites as the problem location,” de Blasio said Monday.

Following an order Thursday from the NYC Health Commissioner that building owners with cooling towers disinfect their towers, the city began collaborating with the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to deploy teams for testing.

De Blasio said there is no evidence that there have been new Legionnaires’ cases since Aug. 3 and that the new cases could be attributed to a lag time in reporting. The number of new daily cases peaked July 30.

“We have encouraging news that this outbreak has slowed,” city health commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said during the press conference.

Legionnaires’ disease is a respiratory disease that causes pneumonia-like symptoms, and isn’t transmitted from person to person but rather by contact with the bacterium Legionella. The bacteria can thrive in warm water and become especially dangerous when the water is turned into a mist that can be inhaled. Medical investigators have linked past outbreaks to public fountains, air conditioning systems, spas, showers and even the misters than keep fruit moist in supermarkets.

The elderly, the young and individuals with underlying health issues are most at risk. Officials aren’t sure what started the current outbreak, which began last month.

The CDC estimates that between 8,000 and 18,000 people in the United States are hospitalized with Legionnaires' disease every year, but the actual number may be higher due to underreporting. More illnesses usually occur in the summer and early fall.

“It is vital to remember that because this is not a contagious disease and because it is a disease that can be treated with antibiotics, it is still crucially important to inform anyone in the affected area who believes they have the symptoms that they must get care immediately,” de Blasio said.

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‘Pac-Man’ bacteria eats nicotine before it reaches the brain, study finds

Between 80 and 90 of smokers try smoking cessation aids without success, but now researchers have discovered a promising solution: a bacterial enzyme that destroys nicotine in the body before it reaches the brain.

"The bacterium is like a little Pac-Man," researcher Kim Janda, a professor of chemistry and member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute, said in a news release. "It goes along and eats nicotine."

By seeking out and stopping nicotine from reaching the brain, the bacterium, which would be used in a drug and prescribed as a stop-smoking tool, deprives the person the “reward” of nicotine.

The Scripps Research Institute’s research is in the early phase of the drug development process, but the team believes the bacterial enzyme can be a successful therapeutic that would help prevent relapse.

For their study, scientists combined serum, a component of blood, from mice with a one-cigarette dose of nicotine. When they added the enzyme, the amount of nicotine in the serum dropped by half in nine to 15 minutes. The typical nicotine half-life is two to three hours.

Researchers also found that the enzyme stays stable in lab conditions and does not create toxic metabolites when it degrades nicotine, making it a good candidate as a drug, according to the news release.

The team is now working on altering the enzyme’s bacterial makeup to help mitigate potential immune liabilities and maximize its therapeutic potential.

"Hopefully we can improve its serum stability with our future studies so that a single injection may last up to a month," first study author Song Xue said in the news release.

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The surprising way taking a vacation improved my health

I just returned from a week away with my sister Laura. As I’ve said before, there is nothing like a sister.  

Crazy things happen when we're together. Sometimes I feel we are in an episode of “I Love Lucy” because we laugh until we cry.

I don't know how many times I have said laughter is healing. I have a bit of proof from my sister-vacation. The day after I got home, I had an appointment for my CT SCAN. As I have shared with you before, I have had high blood pressure since about the age of 42, which is the same age both of my parents began taking medication for high blood pressure. (What a lovely thing to inherit.)

With medication, I can only get my blood pressure down to 135/93, which is still considered high. When the doctor took my blood pressure this time, it was 120/60. This is considered the very best number! We thought the machine had malfunctioned, so we took it again. The doctor and I looked at each other in silence, astounded.

"The vacation?" he said.

"Whoa," I said, "looks like I'd better get back on the road again. Willie Nelson, where are you, buddy?"

Just goes to show you what a little time away with someone you love can do for your health.

Accolades seem few and far between these days. But I recently received a letter from the Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation (JCCF) at the University of California, Los Angeles thanking me for my help funding research at the center. The kind folks at the JCCF credited my support with helping them earn their highest rating in top U.S. cancer centers named by the U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings.

It feels good to be making a difference in the lives of women living with breast cancer, like myself, alone. But receiving a generous pat on the back for it makes those efforts all the more rewarding.

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Easy to swallow: The simple remedy that has replaced my blood pressure pills

It hasn't been easy, but I have stepped up my exercise and gone back to meditation and yoga: techniques I had done regularly in the past. 

I am a believer in the importance of sleep, yoga and meditation, but I can't remember how or when I got off track.

It's weird how these things happen to us yet we can't recall what triggered it. Forget the guilt, and slowly get yourself moving in the right direction.

I don't know the demographic of those who read this blog, but if you're over 60, you may think these techniques are a leftover from the 1960s, hippies and flower power. Not true!

Yoga, sleep, and meditation can have an impact on cancer. Did you know that yoga poses actually massage organs? I am concentrating on yoga poses that work on the liver.

I have hereditary high blood pressure. In May, they stopped making the medication I was taking. It was a drug that treated both high blood pressure and high cholesterol in one pill. Surprise, surprise: They decided to double their profits and sell each pill individually, and one of those was just dropped by my insurance plan! I had been wanting to get off this medication after reading articles indicating high blood pressure can be controlled with diet change. I decided not to take either of these drugs for a month and see what happened.

With medication, my blood pressure had been running about 135 over 93. The optimum number should be less than 120 over less than 80, according to the American Heart Association. If you hit 140 over 90, you have high blood pressure, or hypertension.

I took a meditation class, which just happened to be on a day when I had an appointment with my doctor. The nurse took my blood pressure, and it was 125 over 65. I asked her to retake it because I could not believe it was so close to normal. I had stopped the meds for about two weeks and had added one day of meditation. It still read 125 over 65! That blew my mind.

Meditation is now on my schedule full time, and we will see what happens at my next doctor's appointment. 

I read an interview with Pete Carroll, who is coach of the Seattle Seahawks. He has his team doing yoga and meditation, and monitors the amount of sleep his athletes get at night. He finds these therapies to be as important as their practice routines.

Apparently, several well-known athletes also do yoga, including Kevin Garnett of the Brooklyn Nets, Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays, and Tom Brady, of the New England Patriots.

I am feeling so much more energetic by adding these practices. I was spending too much time sitting and could feel my body losing muscle tone. It had become more difficult to pick up something from the floor, or to get up from the floor after stretching. I do believe this has had a positive effect on my general attitude. When you are tired and weak, you are not yourself. We should all force ourselves to walk to the corner every day. Even something this small can make a difference.

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What is available for a Neurological Treatment method Heart

Skilled Article author Anna Woodward

Getting a neurological challenge may be a incredibly daunting customer. To figure out if your personal challenge is definitely critical or not, you must view a neurological treatment method heart. At this time there, they will execute a few checks in addition to acte to help concentrate on the method to obtain your personal challenge, in addition to distinguish solutions. At this point is a synopsis connected with widespread indicators in addition to ailments so that you could be well prepared after you take a look at your personal medic.

100 years previously, in order to to figure out if anyone acquired restricted of their mental was going to do the autopsy to begin with acquired past away. Currently, together with the connected with current treatments, there are a selection connected with means a health care professional can certainly establish which will problem you will be affected by. An essential improve on this arena is definitely MRI's in addition to fMRI's. Often the diminuendo MRI signifies magnets resonance images, as well as efficient magnets resonance images. These kind of procedures models give health professionals possibilities to look at brain's performance very quickly, rather then requiring you to delay time or perhaps 2 or 3 weeks to get photographs for being made, seeing that was the scenario having aged models. By means of searching the harsh weather connected with iron bars inside blood vessels by magnets, health professionals could see often the approaches to from a single an area of the mental to the other, thus search for mental pastime in addition to distinguish almost any abnormalities.

Furthermore images checks, there are laboratory-screening checks which might be done for a neurological treatment method heart to figure out if there usually are almost any difficulties. Individuals' blood vessels, urine, along with elements can often spot ailment in addition to know about operations with the ailment. Like should you have a new vertebrae as well as mental infections as well as blood vessels watercraft deterioration, antibodies is usually known to be in a very blood sample that can highlight the ailment the actual these have gone on. One could in addition test out the levels connected with a number of prescription drug prescription drugs inside process to figure out whether or not they are working adequately as well as if your degrees ought to be inspected.

There is a incredibly broad selection of diseases that could affect the mental along with the central nerovosu system. There are many indicators which might be assigned to a really ailment. Widespread indicators which might be caused by broad selection of diseases include things like numbness inside feet as well as abs, difficulties evening out, significant problems in addition to empathy to help light source, and tremors. When you are affected by all of these indicators, advising a new medic is definitely very well well-advised. There are many mental health indicators which might be attributable to ailment with the mental as well as central nerovosu system. Signs include things like consistent losing quick ram, difficulties discussing, greater annoyance as well as tempers, or anything else.

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