21 States With Spikes in COVID-19 Infections – MedicineNet Health News

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21 States With Spikes in COVID-19 Infections – MedicineNet Health News

By Robin Foster and E.J. Mundell
HealthDay Reporters

FRIDAY, June 12, 2020 — Governors across America have eased lockdowns, but a new analysis shows coronavirus cases are rising in nearly half of U.S. states.

The rolling seven-day average of new cases per capita has been higher than the average seven days earlier in 21 states, the Associated Press analysis found.

In Arizona, hospitals have been told to prepare for the worst. Texas has more hospitalized COVID-19 patients than at any time before, the analysis found. And the governor of North Carolina said recent jumps in cases caused him to rethink plans to reopen schools or businesses.

In some states, more testing has uncovered more cases. But experts think at least some spikes are due to lifting stay-at-home orders, school and business closures, and other social distancing measures, the wire service reported.

The increases aren’t coming in new cases only: At least nine states have seen spikes in hospitalizations since Memorial Day.

In Arizona, Texas, North and South Carolina, California, Oregon, Arkansas, Mississippi and Utah, increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients are showing up at hospitals, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The hospitalization data challenges the notion that the country is seeing a spike in new coronavirus cases solely because of increased testing, the Post reported. By Friday, the U.S. coronavirus case count had passed 2 million as the death toll neared 114,000.

“It is a disaster that spreads,” Dr. Jay Butler, who oversees coronavirus response work at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the AP. “It’s not like there’s an entire continental seismic shift and everyone feels the shaking all at once.”

Earlier this week, another Post analysis showed that parts of the country that had been spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic are now tallying record-high cases of new infections.

Since the start of June, 14 states and Puerto Rico have recorded their highest seven-day average of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, data tracked by the Post shows. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Masks, lockdowns show benefit

But a new British study offers some hope: Scientists report that the widespread use of face masks — not more lockdowns — could slow the spread of the virus to tolerable levels, the Post reported.

“Our analyses support the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public,” said study leader Richard Stutt, a Cambridge University professor, the newspaper reported.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A scientific journal, also suggest that lockdowns alone can’t fight the coronavirus if and when it spikes again.

A new study also showed that stay-at-home orders may have been worth it, preventing nearly 60 million U.S. infections.

That report, published in the Nature medical journal, examined how different social distancing policies and measures might have limited the spread of COVID-19, the Post reported.

The University of California at Berkeley researchers examined six countries — China, the United States, France, Italy, Iran and South Korea — and estimated how more than 1,700 different interventions, such as stay-at-home orders, business closings and travel bans, altered the spread of the virus.

The report concluded that those six countries collectively managed to avert 62 million test-confirmed infections, which the researchers estimated would correspond to roughly 530 million total infections, the newspaper said.

School closures had no significant effect, although the authors said the issue requires further study, the Post reported.

Even as all states have now reopened, public health officials have raised concern about future coronavirus spread following days of protests against police brutality across the country. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday it was closely monitoring the demonstrations and warned such gatherings could spur coronavirus transmission, CNN reported. Some states are already seeing upward trends in new cases.

The protests make it hard to follow social distancing guidelines and “may put others at risk,” CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in a statement, CNN reported.

Economic upswing

On Thursday, another weekly batch of new jobless claims suggested that the damage the pandemic has wrought on the U.S. economy may be slowing. Roughly 1.5 million people filed for state unemployment insurance. That’s a continued decline from the 6 million claims seen in a single week in March, The New York Times reported. More than 40 million claims have been filed since the coronavirus pandemic began.

“We’re slowly seeing the labor market recovery begin to take form,” said Robert Rosener, an economist at Morgan Stanley, but “there’s still an enormous amount of layoffs going on.”

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve said the unemployment rate should hit 9.3 percent by the end of 2020, dropping to 5.5 percent in 2022, the Times reported. Prior to the pandemic, jobless rates were at historic lows.

In other news, the U.S. government’s supply of remdesivir, the only drug known to work against COVID-19, will run out at the end of the month, Dr. Robert Kadlec, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official, told CNN.




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The government’s last shipment of the drug will go out the week of June 29. Gilead Sciences, the company that makes remdesivir, is ramping up to make more, but it’s unclear how much will be available this summer.

“Right now, we’re waiting to hear from Gilead what is their expected delivery availability of the drug as we go from June to July,” Kadlec said. “We’re kind of not in negotiations, but in discussions with Gilead as they project what the availability of their product will be.”

The government has been working to help Gilead “with some of their supply chain challenges in terms of raw materials and being able to accelerate the process,” said Kadlec, the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response.

He added that it’s clear that “whatever the supply may be, there may not be enough for everyone who may need it.”

Vaccine search

Meanwhile, the search for an effective vaccine goes on. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in late May that it would provide up to $1.2 billion to the drug company AstraZeneca to develop a potential coronavirus vaccine from Oxford University, in England.

The fourth, and largest, vaccine research agreement funds a clinical trial of the potential vaccine in the United States this summer with about 30,000 volunteers, the Times reported.

The goal? To make at least 300 million doses that could be available as early as October, the HHS said in a statement.

The United States has already agreed to provide up to $483 million to the biotech company Moderna and $500 million to Johnson & Johnson for their vaccine efforts. It is also providing $30 million to a virus vaccine effort led by the French company Sanofi, the Times reported. On Thursday Moderna said a large clinical trial of its vaccine candidate could begin in July.

According to a Times tally, the top five states in coronavirus cases as of Friday are: New York with over 385,600; New Jersey with over 165,800; California with over 143,600, Illinois with nearly 131,700 and Massachusetts with over 104,600.

Nations grapple with pandemic

Elsewhere in the world, the situation remains challenging.

Even as the pandemic is easing in Europe and some parts of Asia, it is worsening in India. The country has loosened some of the social distancing enacted in the world’s largest lockdown, even as cases surge. Three weeks ago, the country had 100,000 cases. As of Thursday, the country has more than 286,500 cases, a Johns Hopkins tally shows.

Brazil has become a hotspot in the coronavirus pandemic. By Friday, the South American country had reported nearly 41,000 deaths and over 802,000 confirmed infections, according to the Hopkins tally. Trump has issued a ban on all foreign travelers from Brazil because of the burgeoning number of COVID-19 cases in that country, CNN reported.

President Jair Bolsonaro’s government had stopped publishing a running total of coronavirus deaths and infections, the AP reported. Critics called the move, which came after official numbers showed Brazil had the third-highest number of deaths and the second-highest number of cases in the world, an attempt to hide the true toll of the disease. A Supreme Court justice on Tuesday ordered publication of the cumulative totals of cases and deaths be resumed, the wire service reported.

Cases are also spiking wildly in Russia: As of Friday, that country reported the world’s third-highest number of COVID-19 cases, at over 510,700, the Hopkins tally showed.

One country had good news to report this week: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday she’s confident her country has halted the spread of the coronavirus after the last known infected person in the country recovered, the AP reported. It has been 19 days since the last new case was reported in New Zealand.

Worldwide, the number of reported infections passed 7.5 million on Friday, with nearly 422,000 deaths, according to the Hopkins tally.

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Home Alone: Will Pandemic’s Changes Harm Kids’ Mental Health Long-Term?

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Home Alone: Will Pandemic’s Changes Harm Kids’ Mental Health Long-Term?

By Serena McNiff
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 12, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The isolation of the coronavirus pandemic might be stunting the social growth of young children, experts say.

Since schools closed across the United States this past spring to stem the spread of COVID-19, kids have been deprived of experiences that are essential to their emotional development — playing at recess, sharing lunch with classmates and learning together in the classroom.

In a recent HealthDay Live! interview, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and Dan Domenech, executive director of The School Superintendents Association, discussed how children might be impacted by the closure of their schools and the disruption of time spent with their peers.

Humans are “social animals,” and the limitations placed on social interactions during the pandemic may harm mental health, particularly among children, they said.

“We didn’t evolve for this kind of interaction with each other,” Christakis explained. “You can see it in young children. An infant as young as 6 months will attend to another infant. They want to engage with them socially. So, withholding all of that from children is making them pay a price, at least in the short term.”

When schools open up, Christakis and Domenech said teachers and administrators should be prepared for a surge of mental health concerns among their students.

“We’re working for our teachers to be instructed and trained to, if not physically embrace students, emotionally embrace students and let them talk about their experiences,” Domenech said.

Still, it’s hard to say exactly what the long-term effects of this period of isolation will have on children, since the circumstances are unprecedented, Christakis added.

Children who experience loneliness and isolation might be more likely to develop depression and other mental health problems, according to one review of 63 studies and more than 51,000 participants, published recently in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

The review’s British researchers, led by Maria Elizabeth Loades from the University of Bath, found that loneliness was associated with mental health problems up to nine years later, and longer periods of loneliness were more reliable indicators of future mental health issues.

To combat current and future distress, Christakis and Domenech advised parents and teachers to prioritize children’s emotional needs.

“It’s more important to deal with the emotional needs of the students, and not necessarily their academic loss. The academic loss can be corrected with time, but their emotional learning and the trauma that they have been undergoing, that’s key,” Domenech said.

What can parents who are struggling to support their children during the summer?

Christakis advised parents to take full advantage of every opportunity for their children to engage in person with other kids, while still being mindful of their local public health recommendations. Since different areas of the country are at different stages of the pandemic, some parents might be able to act on this advice more, depending on where they live.

“There’s a social learning deficit that needs to be closed,” Christakis said. “Children are going to need more time outdoors with playmates. If [summer] camps are open where you live and you have the resources, I would try to make that available to your children, and support them through the summer as best you can.”

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SOURCES: June 5, 2020, HealthDay Live! interview with: Dimitri Christakis, M.D., M.P.H., director, Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and Dan Domenech, executive director, The School Superintendents Association; June 3, 2020, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, online

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That Cough or Sneeze Behind You Might Not Be COVID: Study

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That Cough or Sneeze Behind You Might Not Be COVID: Study

FRIDAY, June 12, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The grosser someone sounds when they cough or sneeze, the more likely you are to suspect they have a contagious infection — even if it’s not true.

That’s the upshot of a new study in which participants were asked to judge whether people were — or weren’t — infected with a communicable disease by the sound of their coughs and sneezes.

On average, they guessed about four out of 10 sounds correctly, according to researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

“We find no evidence that perceivers can reliably detect pathogen threats from cough and sneeze sounds, even though they are reasonably certain they can,” said study lead author Nicholas Michalak, a doctoral student in psychology.

“Moreover, there was no evidence that accuracy improved when participants knew the true number of infectious sounds in advance or when participants focused on how clear or disgusting they perceived the sounds,” he added in a university news release.

Michalak said it appears that people are convinced that sounds that disgust them represent a likely disease threat. And that could lead them to shun others who make disgusting but noninfectious noises, he noted.

The study authors said the findings suggest that when you hear someone cough or sneeze, it might be best to leave the diagnosis to the doctor.

— Robert Preidt

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SOURCE: University of Michigan, news release, June 10, 2020

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Oral Polio Vaccines Might Protect Against New Coronavirus: Experts

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Oral Polio Vaccines Might Protect Against New Coronavirus: Experts

FRIDAY, June 12, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Oral polio vaccines might provide temporary protection against the new coronavirus while scientists try to develop a vaccine to fight COVID-19 infection, experts say.

Evidence suggests that inoculations such as polio vaccines protect children against a number of infections, so it makes sense to test if polio vaccines can ward off the new coronavirus, Konstantin Chumakov, Dr. Robert Gallo, and colleagues wrote in Science magazine, CNN reported.

Chumakov is associate director for research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division, and Gallo, of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, co-discovered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

“We propose the use of OPV [oral poliovirus vaccine] to ameliorate or prevent COVID-19,” they wrote. “Both poliovirus and coronavirus are positive-strand RNA viruses; therefore, it is likely that they may induce and be affected by common innate immunity mechanisms.”

They noted that oral polio vaccines are safe, cheap, easy to administer and widely available, with more than 1 billion doses made and used each year in more than 140 countries, CNN reported.


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When COVID-19 Strikes in Pregnancy, C-Section Tied to Worse Outcomes

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When COVID-19 Strikes in Pregnancy, C-Section Tied to Worse Outcomes

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 11, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Pregnant women with COVID-19 who deliver by cesarean section may be at greater risk for complications that affect them and their babies, new research suggests.

The study focused on 82 women with COVID-19 — four of them with severe symptoms — who gave birth in hospitals in Spain. Thirty-seven women delivered by cesarean section (C-section), including eight as a direct result of COVID-19 issues.

Nearly 30% of babies delivered by C-section had to go to the neonatal intensive care unit, compared with fewer than 20% of babies delivered vaginally, the researchers found.

“Cesarean section should be done only when there is an indication for it outside COVID,” said Dr. David Baud of the materno-fetal and obstetrics research unit at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Baud said a C-section should not be performed just because the mother has COVID-19 or to prevent transmission of the virus to the baby.

Risks associated with a C-section rise when the mother has COVID-19, he added. The study found that women who had a C-section were more likely to wind up in the intensive care unit themselves. They also were more likely to be obese, in need of oxygen when they entered the hospital and to have abnormal chest X-rays.

None of the mothers who delivered vaginally developed severe medical problems, while nearly 14% who had a C-section had to go to the ICU.

Five percent of women who delivered vaginally saw their COVID-19 worsen, compared with 22% who had a C-section, according to the report.

Whether COVID-19 can be passed to a baby in the womb isn’t known, but this study may shed some light on the possibility.

Of 72 newborns tested for COVID-19 within six hours of birth, 4% were positive for the virus. Repeat testing after 48 hours found that all tested negative. None of these babies developed COVID-19 symptoms within 10 days, the study authors said.

However, two babies delivered by C-section did develop COVID-19 symptoms within 10 days. Both had contact with their parents immediately after birth, the researchers said. Their symptoms resolved within two days.

Dr. Adi Davidov, associate chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City, reviewed the study findings.

He said that “it is not surprising that women who required a cesarean section had worse outcomes.”

Women who have COVID-19 and require a C-section are usually much sicker, Davidov said. It would make sense that their outcomes would be worse.

Although the authors tried to control for many factors, he said it is nearly impossible to control for every variable in this kind of observational study.

“Despite these confounding variables, it is safe to say that whenever possible, the best mode of delivery is vaginal. This is true for women who have COVID-19 or not,” Davidov said.

The findings were published online June 8 as a research letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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SOURCES: David Baud, MD, PhD, materno-fetal and obstetrics research unit, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Lausanne, Switzerland; Adi Davidov, MD, associate chairman, obstetrics and gynecology, Staten Island University Hospital, New York City; Journal of the American Medical Association, June 8, 2020, online

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Love During Lockdown: Survey Shows How Couples Have Coped

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Love During Lockdown: Survey Shows How Couples Have Coped

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 11, 2020 (HealthDay News) — As U.S. states issued stay-at-home orders in March and April, one of many questions was how couples would fare under lockdown together. Now a new survey offers an initial snapshot: some more arguments, regular declarations of love, and a good dose of same-old, same-old.

The survey included close to 2,300 U.S. adults who were living with their partner when the pandemic hit — forcing most to hunker down at home.

For some couples, the extra together time caused friction: One-quarter of respondents admitted to more arguments with their partner.

However, about as many claimed to be squabbling less than usual, while the remaining half were maintaining their status quo.

Many couples were holding steady when it came to sex, as well. Two-thirds of respondents said they were having sex with their partner at their normal frequency — which, on average, worked out to the awkward statistic of 2.5 times per week.

Some people — 16% — were having sex less often than their norm, but even more (28%) said their sex lives had heated up since lockdown.

Researchers said it’s no surprise that U.S. couples are having a range of experiences. Much depends on what their relationships were like before lockdown, and what their present circumstances are like — a cramped apartment versus a spacious home, or financial security versus insecurity.

“For couples who were already in a strained relationship, this probably created even more strain,” said lead researcher David Frederick, an associate professor of health psychology at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.

And yes, he said, there’s a distinct possibility that strain will lead to breakups — as research into other traumatic events, like the 9/11 attacks, has found.

“A disaster or pandemic can push some couples to become more stressed and argue more, leading them to break up,” Frederick said. “It can also make them question if this is the relationship they want to spend their life in.”

Dr. Jacqueline Olds, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Boston, agreed that some people have likely been rethinking their lives and plans for the future. In lockdown, she said, “you can’t distract yourself in the ways you used to.”

To the extent that people use that time to self-reflect, Olds said, some might decide their current relationship is not what they want.

That’s one side of things. Most couples surveyed, however, reported no big changes in their relationship, or said they were arguing less, or having sex more often.

And overall, 84% said they and their partner exchanged an “I love you” at least three times a week. Almost two-thirds were snuggling and cuddling that often.

“For some couples,” Frederick said, “the safer-at-home order was a positive shock to the system. It allowed them to spend more time together and to become more emotionally and physically intimate.”

So for them, the current moves toward reopening may actually be an issue — as the old routines and distractions return.

“Holding on to what’s been good may be challenging,” said Dr. Richard Schwartz, who is also a psychiatrist at McLean — and married to Olds.

His advice was straightforward: Talk about what you enjoyed during your time home together, and figure out ways to carry it through.

Olds pointed to something people often forget, pandemic or no pandemic: “A relationship is always a work-in-progress,” she said. “There can be a thousand little things you can tweak over time.”

That doesn’t mean constant hard work. Instead, many people may need to be more selective with their time and energy.

“Maybe you decide you don’t need to get so caught up in the little dramas at work anymore,” Frederick said, as an example. In other research, on “regret,” he noted, people generally do not wish they’d devoted more time to work — but to family.

From one viewpoint, a positive about lockdown has been the lack of choices, according to Olds. People have not had all the usual events vying for their attention, and may have gained clarity on what matters most.

As reopening progresses, Olds advised resisting any temptation to return to “packing it all in,” and instead maintain some boundaries around personal and family time.

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SOURCES: David Frederick, Ph.D., associate professor, health psychology, Chapman University, Orange, Calif.; Jacqueline Olds, M.D., consultant, psychiatry, adult psychiatry residency training program, McLean Hospital, Boston; Richard Schwartz, M.D., senior consultant, adult psychiatry residency training program, McLean Hospital

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HIV Can Travel From the Brain, Animal Study Suggests

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HIV Can Travel From the Brain, Animal Study Suggests

THURSDAY, June 11, 2020 (HealthDay News) — HIV can reside in brain cells and spread the AIDS-causing virus to the body, a new study in mice indicates.

It’s known that HIV enters the brain within eight days of infection, but less is known about whether HIV-infected brain cells can release HIV that can then infect other tissues.

This new work from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found that certain types of brain cells can harbor HIV, which can then spread to immune cells that carry it elsewhere in the body — even if HIV has been suppressed by antiretroviral therapy.

“Our study demonstrates that HIV in the brain is not trapped in the brain — it can and does move back into peripheral organs through leukocyte trafficking,” said study lead author Lena Al-Harthi, an immunology expert at Rush.

The study results could prove important in attempts to find cures for HIV, Al-Harthi said in a news release from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

In the study, the researchers transplanted HIV-infected or noninfected human astrocyte brain cells into the brains of immunodeficient mice.

The human brain contains billions of astrocytes, which perform a variety of tasks, from supporting communication between brain cells to maintaining the blood-brain barrier.

The researchers found that the transplanted HIV-infected astrocytes were able to spread the virus to CD4-positive T immune cells in the brain. These immune cells then migrated out of the brain and into the rest of the body, spreading the infection to organs such as the spleen and lymph nodes.

This occurred, although at lower levels, even when the mice received combination antiretroviral therapy, a standard treatment for HIV, according to the study.

“This study demonstrates the critical role of the brain as a reservoir of HIV that is capable of reinfecting the peripheral organs with the virus,” said Jeymohan Joseph, an HIV expert at the NIMH.

“The findings suggest that in order to eradicate HIV from the body, cure strategies must address the role of the central nervous system,” Joseph added.

However, the work is still in its early stages, and animal research is not necessarily replicated in humans.

The study was co-funded by the NIMH and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The results were published June 11 in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

— Robert Preidt

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SOURCE: U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, news release, June 11, 2020



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COVID Got You Scared of Performing CPR? Study Finds Infection Risk Is Low

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COVID Got You Scared of Performing CPR? Study Finds Infection Risk Is Low

THURSDAY, June 11, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Someone collapses with a cardiac arrest nearby — in the COVID-19 era, do you dare to assist?

Here’s some reassuring — and potentially lifesaving — news: You’re at low risk for coronavirus infection if you perform CPR on someone in cardiac arrest, new research shows.

CPR can save the lives of people who suffer cardiac arrest in a public place. But concerns have been raised during the current pandemic that chest compressions used in CPR could release respiratory droplets containing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

“We believe the current findings support telecommunicators and bystanders maintaining the most efficient approach that prioritizes rapid identification of cardiac arrest and immediately proceeds to chest compressions and use of a defibrillator,” wrote study authors led by Dr. Michael Sayre, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“Delaying bystander CPR to [put on personal protective equipment] should only be considered when the prevalence of COVID-19 infection is substantially increased,” the researchers concluded.

To assess the risk, researchers analyzed Seattle EMS and hospital data from Jan. 1 to mid-April. During that time, EMS responded to 1,067 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, of which 478 were treated by EMS with CPR.

During the active period of COVID-19 (Feb. 26-April 15) in the study, EMS responded to 537 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, of which 230 (48%) received CPR from EMS.

As of April 15, Seattle had 15 deaths per 100,000 population from COVID-19, higher than 42 other states at that time. COVID-19 was diagnosed in less than 10% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.

Assuming the risk of coronavirus transmission to bystanders performing hands-only CPR without personal protective equipment is 10%, treating 100 patients could result in one bystander infection (10% with COVID-19 multiplied by 10% transmission rate), according to the researchers.

Given a 1% death rate for COVID-19, about one rescuer might die in 10,000 cases of bystander CPR. By comparison, bystander CPR saves more than 300 additional lives among 10,000 patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

The findings were outlined in a research letter published June 4 in the journal Circulation.

— Robert Preidt

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SOURCE: Circulation, news release, June 5, 2020

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Eating Before Bedtime Might Pack on the Pounds

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Eating Before Bedtime Might Pack on the Pounds

Latest Diet & Weight Management News

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 11, 2020 (HealthDay News) — If you have a late dinner and then head to bed, beware: You may gain weight while you sleep, a new study suggests.

That’s most likely because your metabolism slows, boosting blood sugar and other chemicals that contribute to weight gain and type 2 diabetes, researchers say.

“It’s not just what you eat, but when you eat that may be a factor in promoting conditions like obesity,” said study author Dr. Jonathan Jun, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “You might eat this same number of calories in that 24-hour period, but your body will handle those calories differently depending on what time you eat them.”

For the study, Jun’s team asked 20 healthy volunteers to eat the same dinner at 6 p.m. or 10 p.m. Both groups went to bed at 11 p.m. and got up at 7 a.m.

Before the study, participants wore activity trackers. During the study, blood samples were taken hourly and sleep studies were conducted. The volunteers also had scans of body fats and ate foods containing compounds that allowed researchers to track fat burning.

The upshot: Late diners had higher blood sugar and burned less fat.

On average, their peak blood sugar level after a late dinner was about 18% higher, and the amount of fat burned about 10% lower, compared with eating earlier, the study found.

These effects might be even greater for people who are obese or have diabetes, Jun said.

What’s not clear is whether it’s the interval between eating time and bedtime that accounts for the difference, he said.

For example, if you have dinner at 10 p.m. but retire at 3 a.m., is that biologically the same as dinner at 6 p.m. and bed at 11 p.m.?

And, Jun said, the effects of eating and sleeping might differ for each person based on their personal metabolism or body clock.

“Instead of getting fixated on what time is late or what time it is on the clock to start or stop eating, we need to recognize that it is very dependent on the individual,” he said.

Jun said he hopes to learn more in future studies.

Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at NYU Langone Health in New York City, reviewed the findings.

“It makes sense that eating close to bedtime alters glucose and fat metabolism, because you are sleeping and not physically active,” she said, adding that sleep has its own processes that involve cellular and molecular mechanisms to help the body stay healthy.

Heller noted that people often get stuck in a routine of eating before dinner, eating dinner, and then snacking until bedtime — which means they have been eating for several hours.

“It is an easy way to pack on the pounds,” she said. “We eat at night for many reasons, including stress, boredom, loneliness and anger.”

To help manage nighttime munching, Heller suggests planning an afternoon snack like hummus and carrots, so you are not starving by dinnertime, and enjoying a balanced, more plant-based dinner. Then close the kitchen.

“Plan activities for those moments when you have an urge to grab a snack — it is unlikely you are hungry, because you had dinner,” Heller said. “Assess what triggers that foray into the kitchen and create a game plan for managing it.”

Some strategies: Have a glass of water or herbal tea, or engage in another activity, such as reading, taking a walk, or listening to music or an audiobook.

“Closing the kitchen after dinner is an easy way to shave off some pounds and get a better night’s sleep,” Heller said.

The findings were published online June 11 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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SOURCES: Jonathan Jun, M.D., associate professor, medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore; Samantha Heller, M.S., R.D., senior clinical nutritionist, NYU Langone Health, New York City; Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, online, June 11, 2020



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First Large Clinical Trial of COVID-19 Vaccine in U.S. Could Begin in July

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First Large Clinical Trial of COVID-19 Vaccine in U.S. Could Begin in July

FRIDAY, June 12, 2020 (HealthDay News) — A large clinical trial of the first U.S. COVID-19 vaccine could begin next month, according to Moderna Inc., which developed the vaccine with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The trial will assess whether the vaccine is effective and will include 30,000 volunteers who will receive either the vaccine or a dummy shot, the Associated Press reported.

That trial can’t start until results of smaller, earlier-stage studies on safety and dosing are available, but Moderna said those studies are progressing well enough to start planning for the large trial.

About a dozen COVID-19 vaccines are in the early stages of testing worldwide, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health expects to assist several more of them into large, late-stage trials this summer, the AP reported.

If all goes well, “there will be potential to get answers” on which vaccines work by the end of the year, Dr. John Mascola, director of the NIH’s vaccine research center, told a meeting of the National Academy of Medicine on Wednesday.

Hundreds of millions of doses of different vaccine candidates are being stockpiled by governments to use when/if scientists conclude that one is effective. The U.S. plans to have 300 million doses available by January, the AP reported.


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