By LAURAN NEERGAARD

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nothing doctors prescribed controlled Michael Garrity's dangerously hypertension — until they removed some nerves in his kidneys.

“My blood pressure went up, I got out of breath and felt tired, and that doesn't happen anymore,” said Garrity, 62, of Needham, Massachusetts. He's still taking medication, but at lower doses his blood pressure is returning to normal for the primary time in years. “I’m thrilled.”

About half of adults within the U.S. suffer from hypertension, a significant risk for heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and even dementia. Many people don't realize they’ve hypertension until it has caused serious damage.

“Know your blood pressure, know the numbers,” emphasized Dr. Randy Zusman of Massachusetts General Hospital, who focuses on the hardest-to-treat cases and advises individuals who think they're doing well to no less than have an annual checkup.

And only a fraction of patients have hypertension well controlled, leaving a necessity for brand new strategies. The Food and Drug Administration approved this “renal denervation” option a couple of 12 months ago, based on studies showing modest profit in patients whose blood pressure stays high despite multiple medications.

After the American Heart Association recently deemed it promising, some hospitals, including Mass General Brigham, at the moment are cautiously offering it while they determine who’re good candidates — and whether their insurance will cover a minimally invasive procedure that costs hundreds of dollars.

What is hypertension?

Two numbers describe blood pressure. The highest, “systolic” pressure is the force that blood exerts on the partitions of the arteries because it is pumped out of the center. The lower “diastolic” value measures the identical pressure, but between heartbeats.

The normal value is lower than 120 over 80. Blood pressure naturally fluctuates throughout the day and is higher if you end up physically lively or stressed. But when it stays high – consistently 130 over 80 or higher, in keeping with the newest guidelines – it stiffens the arteries and makes the center work harder.

How to measure blood pressure

No doctor's visit is crucial. Pharmacies and sometimes even libraries offer screening, and folks can use monitors at home.

To avoid falsely high readings, the American Medical Association has suggestions: Sit quietly, feet on the ground, legs uncrossed. Place the cuff in your bare arm, not over clothing. Instead of dangling your arm, place it on a table.

Medication is just not the one technique to treat hypertension

Medication is a must once hypertension reaches 140/90. The average patient requires two or three medications, sometimes more, together with a healthier lifestyle, Zusman said.

But the hypertension Garrity has struggled with since his late 20s is proof against treatment. Despite taking 4 to 6 medications in addition to a strict weight-reduction plan and exercise, his blood pressure recurrently reached 150 over 100 or worse.

What is Renal Denervation?

Doctors thread a small catheter or tube through blood vessels to succeed in the kidneys after which beam ultrasound or radiofrequency energy. These impulses go through the renal arteries and selectively goal surrounding nerves, Dr. Joseph Garasic, an interventional cardiologist at Mass General who performed Garrity's procedure. It takes about an hour.

Although already utilized in other countries, a significant U.S. trial of renal denervation failed a couple of decade ago, prompting changes before researchers tried again. In November 2023, the FDA approved two catheter systems from Recor Medical and Medtronic.

It's not a cure – and a few patients don't profit from it. However, Garasic said several studies showed, on average, an 8 to 10 point drop in blood pressure, a modest but vital improvement. Some, like Garrity, see a bigger decline, enough to step by step reduce medication use.

The FDA deemed the procedure secure for rigorously chosen patients — it wasn't tested in patients with kidney disease or narrowed arteries, for instance. And studies have only lasted a number of years, not long enough to say whether the nerves could eventually regenerate.

The American Heart Association's guidelines encourage prospective patients and experienced physicians to have “thoughtful and informed conversations” to make your mind up who’s a superb candidate.

Originally published: January 22, 2025 at 10:15 am PST

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press

Women should have the opportunity to gather their very own test samples for cervical cancer screening, an influential health panel said on Tuesday.

Draft recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force aim to get more people screened and spread the word that girls can collect their very own vaginal samples for testing cancer-causing HPV.

Women of their 20s should still get a Pap test every three years. But after that – from ages 30 to 65 – women can get an HPV test every five years, the panel said.

And these HPV tests will be performed on samples collected either by a health care provider or by the patient themselves in a mobile clinic or doctor's office. Women ages 30 to 65 can still decide to have a Pap test by a health care provider every three years or a Pap test plus HPV test every five years.

“I am very confident that self-collection will help more women be screened and we can further reduce the burden of cervical cancer in women,” said Task Force Vice Chair Dr. John Wong of Tufts University School of Medicine.

Earlier this 12 months, US regulators expanded using two HPV test kits Include self-collection. Studies show that girls and doctors collect samples with similar accuracy.

Currently, the tests are only intended to be used in healthcare settings; Home testing may very well be on the horizon.

HPV or human papillomavirus could be very common and is transmitted through sex. Most HPV infections clear up on their very own, but persistent infection can result in cervical cancer. Most cervical cancers occur in women who’re inadequately screened, diagnosed or treated.

To collect a sample, a swab or brush from the kit is inserted into the vagina and rotated. It is placed in a tube and processed in a laboratory.

The HPV tests detect high-risk kinds of the virus. In contrast, a Pap test looks for abnormal cells within the cervix.

Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden already use self-collection for early detection of cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer deaths have declined within the U.S. over the past decade, and there’s an HPV vaccine really useful for pre-teens Prevent cancer in men and women. Still, nearly 14,000 recent cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed within the U.S. this 12 months and there have been an estimated 4,360 deaths.

Black women, Native American women and Hispanic women still have higher mortality rates in comparison with white women. The mortality rate can also be above average for girls living in distant areas.

For many ladies, transgender men and non-binary people, collecting your personal sample could also be more comfortable than having a health care provider use stirrups and speculums.

The draft suggestion stays largely the identical as that of the group previous recommendations as of 2018. For example, women under 21 don’t have to be screened for cervical cancer. This also applies to women over 65 who’ve had regular check-ups with normal results. And women of any age who’ve had a complete hysterectomy don’t have to be examined.

The recommendations will be commented on until January thirteenth.

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Originally published: December 10, 2024 at 11:41 am PST

With its recent Lightning Lane Premier Pass, Disney is finally getting its Lightning Lane system right.

The Lightning Lane Premier Pass is a brand new option for purchasing access to Disney's alternate queues, launching this week at Disneyland Resort and next week at Walt Disney World in Florida. A Disneyland guest who purchases the Premier Pass will receive one-time access to each Lightning Lane at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure that day. There isn’t any have to book return times through the Disneyland app. Just show your pass in your phone and go.

It's easy – similar to a line-skipping pass must be. But I feel the very best thing in regards to the Lightning Lane Premier Pass is the value. Starting at an eye-watering $400 per person, the Lightning Lane Premier Pass is a premium upgrade that few Disneyland theme park visitors will purchase. Which is precisely accurately.

To paraphrase Incredibles Syndrome, if everyone skips the road, nobody will. With day by day prices lower than 10% of what Disneyland charges for the brand new Premier Pass, 1000’s of individuals are purchasing Disney's Lightning Lane Multi Pass day-after-day, crowding the Lightning Lanes and increasing wait times in standby lines.

If almost half the people within the park buy a skip-the-line pass, that's not much of an upgrade. It's no wonder that many fans have complained that the Lightning Lane Multi Pass represents a stealth price increase – greater than $30 more per person per day that visitors must pay to get a comparable experience as back then. when there was just one line per Disney attraction.

The situation is even worse at Walt Disney World, where visitors can book up to 3 Lightning Lane return times per day before their visit. Attractive capability is a zero-sum game. Each seat allocated to a Lightning Lane guest is one less available to an individual waiting within the standby queue.

If Disney sells Lightning Lanes to 40% of the people within the park, it can must dedicate way more than 40% of its attraction capability to Lightning Lane guests in order that these queues have significantly shorter wait times than the regular queues. This increases waiting times for guests using the standby queues.

Of course, the longer standby wait times get, the more likely it’s that folks could be convinced to spend more cash on Lightning Lane. It's a vicious cycle for fans, but a profitable one for Disney.

If Disney were to switch the Lightning Lane Multi Pass with the brand new Premier Pass product, it could be a positive step for all Disney fans. A small group with the means and inclination to pay a whole lot of dollars a day could have a very top-notch experience speedrunning through the parks, while we could all save a bit of money and luxuriate in shorter wait times.

But Disney is keeping the Lightning Lane Multi Pass and in addition adding the brand new Premier Pass. So the vicious cycle will proceed for fans as Disney adds one other lucrative revenue stream to the corporate.

Originally published: October 22, 2024 at 9:24 am

By Andy Miller, Renuka Rayasam, KFF Health News (TNS)

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. – As principal of Dunaire Elementary School, Sean Deas has seen firsthand the difficulties children face in long-stay hotels. About 10% of the scholars at his school east of Atlanta live in such a college.

The children, Deas said, were often exposed to violence on hotel property, showed aggression or fear because they lived in a crowded single room, and faced food insecurity because some hotel rooms didn’t have kitchens.

“Social trauma is the biggest challenge” when students first arrive, Deas said. “We hear a lot about sleep issues.” To meet students' needs, Deas developed a schoolwide program with counselors, a food pantry and special protocols for coping with individuals who might go to sleep in school.

“Beyond the classroom, there is a social part,” he said. “We have to find ways to support the families too.”

For low-income families on the lookout for housing, extended-stay hotels are sometimes a final resort. According to the Education Department, greater than 100,000 students nationwide lived in extended-stay hotels in 2022, although officials say that is probably going an undercount. Children living in hotels are considered homeless under federal law, and in some Atlanta-area counties, about 40% of homeless students live in such shelters, based on local officials.

And with rising rents and evictions, in addition to limited access to public housing, the usage of extended-stay hotels is becoming more common as a long-term option. Like other types of homelessness, living in hotels can result in or worsen physical and mental health problems in children, say family advocates and researchers who study homelessness.

In the Atlanta area, inspections of extended-stay hotels have uncovered ventilation problems, insect infestations, mold and other health risks. Children living there may additionally experience or witness crime and gun violence. The increasing use of extended-stay hotels is a warning sign, observers said, and reflects the dearth of sufficient reasonably priced housing policy within the United States

And the crisis has “lifelong consequences,” said Sarah Saadian of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “The only way to truly address this shortage is for significant federal funding to be available at scale. Build more housing and close the gap between rents and wages.”

Evictions often force families to remain in hotels – and could be stranded there. “Many landlords refuse to rent to people whose credit has been affected by evictions, even if the tenant is not responsible for the eviction,” said Joy Monroe, founder and CEO of the Single Parent Alliance & Resource Center, or SPARC, a nonprofit Group within the Atlanta metro area that has helped a whole lot of families move from hotels to apartments or rental homes.

Advocates say black women and other women of color, often with children, are way more prone to be kicked out and more prone to should stay in long-stay hotels.

Some residents are also families fleeing domestic violence, they are saying.

Hotels often require no deposits, application fees or background checks, providing immediate relief for families looking for accommodation. While there are higher-priced options, the typical price for an extended-stay economy class room was $56.68 per night in the primary three months of 2024, based on Highland Group, a research firm that focuses on the Hotel sector focused – what works at greater than $1,700 per thirty days.

And while the rooms offer protection from other types of homelessness — like sleeping in a automotive or in a tent — a hotel is “not a place to raise children,” Michael Bryant, CEO of the New Life Community Alliance, told families in South Dekalb helps, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, move from hotels to apartments.

Children living in hotels are sometimes behind on their vaccinations and will find yourself within the emergency room due to delays in care, said Gary Kirkilas, a pediatrician in Phoenix who helps children, teens and families who’re currently homeless or from are vulnerable to homelessness. About 75% of the unstable children he sees have not less than one developmental delay, and others have significant emotional and behavioral problems.

Tanazia Scott, who has been shuttling between two extended-stay hotels for several months, said her three children are “depressed and upset” about hotel life.

An eviction left Kassandra Norman, 58, and her two daughters on a months-long trip to Atlanta-area hotels. They slept in a automotive outside a supermarket for 3 months. “It’s hard to do homework in the car and in the hotel,” said 19-year-old Kazuri Taylor, Norman’s younger daughter.

Some hotels are banning children from playing outside of their parking lots, causing additional stress, advocates say. That's why Yvonne Thomas, 45, and her family were evicted from an extended-stay hotel in DeKalb County. She said, “They kicked us out for nothing.”

And there are other problems. More than a dozen students at Dunaire Elementary are staying at an extended-stay property called the Haven Hotel. In August, the DeKalb County Division of Code Enforcement said the hotel “failed to meet minimum life safety standards.” According to reports from the State Health Inspectorate, cockroaches and spiders live in rooms and passageways. Residents say they were charged $1 for a roll of bathroom paper.

The hotel's owner and manager couldn’t be reached for comment after several attempts.

“Nobody talks about these families,” said Sue Sullivan, a community advocate and volunteer with the Motel to Home coalition in Atlanta, who brings toys, book bags, food and toiletries on her hotel visits.

A health inspection in February at one other DeKalb County hotel found several rooms with poor ventilation, insect infestation and mold, amongst other things. Two people were fatally shot there in May.

Children who experience violence can develop anxiety, depression and other disorders, said Charles Moore, director of the Urban Health Initiative at Emory University School of Medicine. “You can feel emotional aftershocks,” said Moore, who has visited Atlanta-area hotels.

But closing such hotels can harm families given the dearth of reasonably priced housing, the dearth of national federal tenant protections and the dearth of outing options, said Terri Lewinson, an associate professor on the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Extended-stay hotels “provide an accessible option for families who have no other choice,” she said.

To alleviate the housing problem, county officials and nonprofits across the country have creatively filled the gap. In the Seattle area, for instance, officials bought King County hotels and converted them into reasonably priced housing, said Mark Skinner of the Highland Group.

In the Atlanta area, SPARC and the local United Way Motel to Home offer financing to assist people transition into housing.

In DeKalb County, where Dunaire Elementary School is situated, greater than a 3rd of the 1,300 homeless students live in hotels, based on Commissioner Ted Terry.

“I hope we can save the children,” he said. “It’s not a safe environment for them.”

Advocates who need to help hotel residents suggest constructing more cost-effective housing and stronger protections for renters from evictions. The federal government has No investment was made in repairs This is crucial to keep up existing social housing, and 25-year-old laws effectively prohibits the development of recent social housing.

Plus, it's “extremely quick, easy and cheap” to evict tenants in Georgia, said Taylor Shelton, an associate professor of geosciences at Georgia State University whose research focuses on social inequalities and concrete spaces. “The playing field is heavily tilted towards landlords.”

Under such circumstances, it's difficult to interrupt the cycle of poverty, said Jamie Rush, a senior attorney on the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Most parents want their children to have a safe, stable home,” Rush said. “You can’t budget your way out of poverty.”

Celts

A substitute player from the Celtics' championship squad might be searching for a brand new team in the subsequent few days.

According to Keith Smith of SpotracCeltics forward Oshae Brissett declined his $2.5 million player option with Boston for the 2024–25 season, allowing him to develop into an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Even if the Celtics will challenge for the title again within the 2024-25 season, the 26-year-old Brissett could earn a more vital role on one other team that doesn't have as many All-Star talents.

The 6-foot-9 Brissett played in 55 regular-season games with the Celtics, averaging 3.7 points and a pair of.9 rebounds in 11.5 minutes per game. These were the fewest minutes Brissett played per game since his rookie season with the Raptors in 2019-20.

Brissett played limited games within the postseason but provided momentum within the Eastern Conference finals against the Pacers. With Boston's frontcourt limited by injuries to Kristaps Porzingis and Luke Kornet, Brissett got here off the bench in Game 2 against Indy and recorded three steals and three assists in 12 minutes.

While Brissett's ability to energise Boston's lineup can be lacking if he signs elsewhere, the Toronto native could land on a team where he could play 18-20 minutes an evening. Boston could also trade the few appearances Brissett gets to a younger player like Jordan Walsh.

By Brenda Goodman | CNN

After many years of false starts, researchers are finally making progress in developing a long-acting and reversible approach to contraception for men.

The experimental product is a hormone gel that men rub on their shoulders once a day. Over time, it blocks sperm production within the testicles.

Developed by the National Institutes of Health and the nonprofit Population Council, the gel takes an identical approach to contraception pills for girls. It uses two hormones: Nestoron, a progestin, and testosterone, the male sex hormone. Nestoron suppresses the production of testosterone within the testes and thus the event of sperm.

However, testosterone has many functions within the body: it's accountable for muscle maintenance and libido, for instance, and men need a few of it of their bloodstream to operate normally. The gel replaces enough to maintain them healthy, but not a lot that they produce enough sperm to impregnate someone.

Since 2005, researchers have been working on formulating and refining the gel's dosage and concentration. They are convinced that they’ve succeeded on this latest test, through which greater than 300 couples took part.

The normal sperm count is between 15 and 200 million sperm per milliliter of semen. Studies have shown that a sperm count of lower than 1 million per milliliter is low enough to stop pregnancy.

In a clinical study86% of men achieved this low sperm count after 15 weeks of using the gel. For some, it worked even faster, suppressing sperm production inside 4 to eight weeks.

“We are simply thrilled with the results. The combination appears to produce better and faster suppression than we expected,” said Diana Blithe, director of the NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, who gave an update on the study results this week on the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in Boston.

Blithe declined to say whether any unintended pregnancies occurred throughout the study. The researchers hope to publish the ultimate data in a medical journal, and he or she said she didn’t wish to disclose the outcomes.

“We expected it to work similarly to hormonal birth control pills. And all I can say is that it is much, much better,” she said.

When used typically, contraception pills, rings and patches for girls Failure rates of about 7%, that’s, 7 out of 100 women who use this method for a yr will turn out to be pregnant. For condoms, the failure rate is about 13%.

The gel also appears to produce other benefits over contraception. For example, if a lady misses the pill for a day or two, she may ovulate, increasing the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy.

If a person's sperm production is totally suppressed and he doesn’t use the gel for a day or two, his hormone levels will begin to get better. However, it takes about 8 to 10 weeks for a person's sperm count to return to a level that will allow pregnancy.

Blithe says that in clinical trials, researchers also didn’t observe the mood swings and depression that may occur in women when taking contraception pills.

“I would say there is a small percentage who have mood swings that they don't like, but that's a relatively small number. And we were actually surprised at how few there are,” she said.

The World Health Organization tested injections with an identical combination of hormones. The approach seemed effective, however the Enrollment was terminated prematurelyin 2011 since the injections caused too many negative effects, including severe depression.

Blithe said it is because the hormones are broken down at different rates when injected. The gel appears to accumulate a concentration of hormones within the skin, making a reservoir that’s released more slowly.

“That fluctuation doesn’t really happen, so we’re not causing ups and downs,” she said.

Matthew Treviño, 35, of Sacramento, California, participated within the study. He rubs just a little gel on each shoulder very first thing within the morning and says it has turn out to be as natural to him as showering and brushing his teeth.

Apart from a slight weight gain, he said he had no complaints. His sex drive had even increased.

“I only experienced an increased libido,” he said the “Unfold” podcastwhich is produced by the University of California at Davis, which was also one in every of the study sites. “Maybe I'm just lucky, but I hope that's the case for the majority of participants. If that's the case, it will definitely change contraception overall.”

To take part in the study, couples needed to be in stable relationships and commit to participating within the research for a period of two years.

Men are advised that the gel could cause quite a few negative effects, including dry or oily skin, increased or decreased libido, hair growth or loss, and mood swings.

For Treviño's partner, Emily Fletcher, 28, participating within the study meant giving up her own contraception method — an IUD — and taking an enormous leap of religion, all at in regards to the time the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“I was worried,” she told Unfold. “There was still this thought in the back of my mind that maybe there could be a problem if the medication didn't work and I got pregnant.”

Fletcher and Treviño, each researchers at UC Davis, ultimately felt it was vital to take part in the study.

Treviño said within the podcast that he has long been considering a contraceptive for men. He doesn't think it's fair that his partner has to bear the burden of contraception.

“Maybe the burden is on the wrong side,” Treviño said. “I think it's somehow unfair that only women are suffering.”

When men stop using the gel, their sperm count returns to normal inside two to 3 months. After the study's recovery period, lots of the participants became fathers, proving the strategy is totally reversible, Blithe said.

This is an important step forward. At the moment, the one contraceptives available for men are condoms, which have a high failure rate, and vasectomy, a surgical operation that’s difficult to reverse.

The researchers have begun discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to debate find out how to test the gel in a final trial. No male contraceptive method has yet gotten that far, Blithe said.

Normally, drugs that make it to this stage should be compared on to a placebo. But testing a real placebo in a study whose goal is to stop pregnancy would simply be unethical, says Dr. Christina Wang, one in every of the study's leaders who makes a speciality of male reproductive biology on the Lundquist Institute at UCLA Harbor Medical Center.

If researchers get the green light from the FDA to start out a trial, they hope to start the ultimate phase of testing in 2025. It can be a couple of more years, and Wang said they are going to likely expand the trial to more sites and recruit more couples.

Large trials also typically require significant investment. Blithe is confident that pharmaceutical corporations can be interested.

Dr. Brian Nguyen, an obstetrician-gynecologist on the University of Southern California who supported participants with their social and behavioral needs throughout the study, says he is happy to bring the gel to market and usher in a brand new era of gender equity in contraception.

“We often think that men are unaware or don't want to be involved. But when you think about men who are in very close relationships, how can a partner hide the fact that she is in pain, has abnormal bleeding or mood swings?” he said. “It's a couple-specific medication that is very special.”

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