- Task force updates guidance for breast cancer screenings for women 40 and older
- The hospital where this mom-to-be plans to deliver her first child is more than an hour from her home
- Inside the tiny corner of Spain that lies in the middle of North Africa
- Anger can harm your blood vessel function, study shows
- Scientists tried to give people COVID — and failed
- Why is exercise good for you? Scientists are finding answers in our cells
KMU Weekly: News around the World
Issue 119 – May 6, 2024
Task force updates guidance for breast cancer screenings for women 40 and older
工作小組更新了40歲及以上女性乳癌篩檢指南
Health
Women are now advised to get a mammogram every other year starting at age 40 and until age 74, according to new recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force. The USPSTF, a volunteer panel of independent medical experts whose recommendations help guide doctors’ decisions and influence insurance plans, previously recommended that biennial mammograms start by age 50 and the decision for women to screen in their 40s “should be an individual one.” These new recommendations, published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, replace the task force’s 2016 recommendations. Some groups, such as the American Cancer Society, have already recommended for women to start mammograms in their 40s. The updated USPSTF recommendations apply to everyone assigned female at birth, including cisgender women, transgender men and nonbinary people at average risk of breast cancer, as well as those with a family history of breast cancer or dense breasts.
---from CNN
根據美國預防服務工作小組 (US Preventive Services Task Force, USPSTF) 現在的新建議，建議女性從40歲開始，直到74歲，每隔一年進行一次乳房 X 光檢查。 USPSTF 是一個由獨立醫學專家組成的志工小組，他們的建議有助於指導醫生的決策並影響保險計劃，該小組此前建議從50 歲開始每兩年進行一次乳房X 光檢查，而女性在40 多歲時進行篩檢的決定「應該由個人決定」。 這些新建議週二發表在醫學期刊《美國醫學會雜誌》(JAMA)上，取代了工作小組 2016 年的建議。美國癌症協會(American Cancer Society) 等一些團體已經建議女性在 40 多歲時開始接受乳房 X 光檢查。 更新後的 USPSTF 建議適用於所有出生時根據生理特徵判定為女性的人，包括具有平均乳癌風險的順性別 (原生生理構造跟性別認同一致的) 女性、跨性別 (原生生理構造跟性別認同不一致的) 男性和非二元性別族群 (處於二元性別以外的性別認同的)，以及有乳癌或有緻密性乳房家族史的人。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
The hospital where this mom-to-be plans to deliver her first child is more than an hour from her home
這位準媽媽計劃在醫院生下她的第一個孩子，醫院距離她家有一個多小時的路程
Health
Mom-to-be Stephanie Zuroski hopes she recognizes the signs of labor quickly, because the hospital where she plans to deliver her first child is more than an hour from her home in rural Elk County, Pennsylvania. Elk County is about 2½ hours outside Pittsburgh, nestled at the edge of the Allegheny National Forest. Zuroski grew up on a farm and is familiar with the tradeoffs that come with rural living. “I am accustomed to driving to get the things that I need,” said Zuroski What she didn’t expect was the lack of labor and delivery units in the county, which means she’ll have to drive out-of-state to give birth in a hospital. “When I started looking into pregnancy and [obstetrician] care, I was shocked local hospitals weren’t delivering babies,” Zuroski said.
---from CNN
準媽媽Stephanie Zuroski 希望她能盡快辨識出臨產跡象，因為她計劃在醫院生下第一個孩子，醫院距離她位於賓州Elk County的的家有一個多小時的路程。 Elk County距離Pittsburgh約 2.5 小時車程，坐落在Allegheny國家森林的邊緣。Zuroski在農場長大，對農村生活的權衡取捨很熟悉。 「我很習慣開車去買我需要的東西，」32 歲的Zuroski說。 但她沒想到的是，在縣裡缺乏具有分娩專業的人力和設備，這意味著她必須開車到州外的醫院生孩子。 「當我開始研究懷孕和產科護理時，我對當地醫院不接生嬰兒感到震驚，」Zuroski說。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Inside the tiny corner of Spain that lies in the middle of North Africa
它位於北非中部的小角落卻隸屬西班牙
Culture
In ancient Greek and Roman legend, the Pillars of Hercules –marking the edge of the known world – were mighty columns that once stood either side of the strait where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. Today, Ceuta is a Spanish exclave, a piece of a country entirely surrounded by another, in this case Morocco. And while it may only be 18 miles from the Spanish mainland, this tiny pocket of Europe in Africa is one of the most unusual places on either continent. Surrounded on three sides by water, Ceuta is protected by high medieval walls, stone citadels and barbed wire that all hint at its tumultuous history. With an area of just seven square miles and a population of around 85,000 people, this peninsula jutting abruptly into the Mediterranean Sea has been in the possession of Spain since 1580. But the exclave is more than just a colonial hangover; with architecture, culture and cuisine blending influences from both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, this could be Spain’s most multicultural city.
---from CNN
在古希臘和羅馬傳說中，Hercules之柱—標誌著已知世界的邊緣—是曾經矗立在地中海與大西洋交匯處的海峽兩側的巨大柱子。 如今，Ceuta是西班牙的一塊海外屬地，一個國家的屬地完全被另一個國家（這裡是Morocco）包圍。 雖然它距離西班牙僅 18 英里，但這個位於非洲，卻屬於歐洲一個小口袋，是這兩個大陸上最不尋常的地方之一。 Ceuta三面環水，被中世紀高牆、石頭城堡和鐵絲網所保護著，這些都暗示著它動盪的歷史。 這個突入地中海的半島面積僅7平方英里，人口約85,000人，自1580年以來一直隸屬於西班牙。 但這片海外屬地不只是殖民時期的所遺留下來的問題；它受直布羅陀海峽兩岸的影響，融合了建築、文化和美食，可能西班牙最具多元文化的城市。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Anger can harm your blood vessel function, study shows
研究顯示，憤怒會損害血管功能
Culture
Feelings of anger adversely affect blood vessel health, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association. “This study was meant to figure out, ‘why is that?’” he said. In the randomized trial, researchers divided 280 participants and gave them a task that made them recall feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety or neutrality for eight minutes. “There have been some studies in the past that have linked the feelings of anger, the feelings of anxiety and the feelings of sadness to heart disease risk in the future,” said lead study author Dr. Daichi Shimbo, professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Columbia University in New York City. Sadness and anxiety tasks didn’t show a significant change in those markers compared with the neutral task — but anger did, Shimbo said. “It looks like anger’s adverse effects on health and disease may be due to its adverse effects on vascular health … the blood vessel health itself,” he said. While the new research is not the first study to make a connection between emotions and cardiovascular impacts, it does shed light on how the connection operates, said Dr. Joe Ebinger, an associate professor of cardiology and director of clinical analytics for the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. He was not involved in the research.
---from CNN
根據週三發表在《美國心臟協會雜誌》上的一項研究，憤怒的情緒會對血管健康產生不利影響。 「這項研究的目的是弄清楚『為什麼會這樣？』」他說。 在這項試驗中，研究人員將280名參與者分組，隨機給他們一個情緒，要他們回憶起憤怒、悲傷、焦慮或中立的感覺持續8分鐘。 該研究的主要作者，也是紐約市哥倫比亞大學心臟病學教授該部門的醫學教授Daichi Shimbo博士說：「過去有一些研究將憤怒、焦慮和悲傷的感覺與未來患心臟病的風險連結起來。」 Shimbo說，與中性情緒實驗相比，悲傷和焦慮情緒實驗的這些標記並未顯示出顯著變化，但憤怒卻出現了顯著變化。 「看起來憤怒對健康和疾病的負面影響可能是由於它對血管健康的負面影響」他說。 洛杉磯Cedars-Sinai的Smidt心臟研究所心臟病學副教授兼臨床分析主任Joe Ebinger 博士表示，雖然這項新研究並不是第一個將情緒與心血管影響連結起來的研究，但它確實揭示了這種關聯是如何運作的。他本身並沒有參與這項研究。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Scientists tried to give people COVID — and failed
科學家試圖向人們傳播新冠病毒，但失敗了
Sciences
It turned out that Zimmer-Harwood, a PhD student at University of Oxford, UK, had nothing to worry about. Neither he nor any of the 35 other people who participated in the ‘challenge’ trial actually got COVID-19. The study’s results, published on 1 May in Lancet Microbe1, raise questions about the usefulness of COVID-19 challenge trials for testing vaccines, drugs and other therapeutics. “If you can’t get people infected, then you can’t test those things,” says Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London. Viral strains used in challenge trials take many months to produce, making it impossible to match emerging circulating variants that can overcome high levels of existing immunity in populations. Researchers use challenge trials to understand infections and quickly test vaccines and therapies. In March 2021, after months of ethical debate, UK researchers launched the world’s first COVID-19 challenge trial. The study2 identified a minuscule dose of the SARS-CoV-2 strain that circulated in the early days of the pandemic that could infect about half of the participants, who had not previously been infected with the virus (at that time, vaccines weren’t yet widely available).
---from Nature
事實證明，英國牛津大學的博士生齊默-哈伍德沒有什麼好擔心的。 他和其他 35 名參與「挑戰」試驗的人實際上都沒有感染COVID-19。 這項研究結果於 5 月 1 日發表在《 Lancet Microbe》上，對 COVID-19 挑戰試驗在測試疫苗、藥物和其他療法方面的有用性提出了質疑。 「如果你不能讓人們被感染，那麼你就無法測試這些東西，」倫敦帝國學院的病毒學家湯姆·皮科克說。 挑戰試驗中使用的病毒株需要數月才能生產，因此不可能與能夠克服人群現有高水平免疫力的新出現的流行變種相匹配。 研究人員利用挑戰試驗來了解感染情況並快速測試疫苗和療法。 2021 年 3 月，經過數月的倫理辯論，英國研究人員啟動了世界上第一個 COVID-19 挑戰試驗。 研究2發現，在大流行初期傳播的極小劑量的 SARS-CoV-2 株可能會感染大約一半的參與者，這些參與者以前從未感染過該病毒（當時還沒有疫苗廣泛使用）。
---摘錄翻譯自Nature
Why is exercise good for you? Scientists are finding answers in our cells
為什麼運動對你有好處？科學家正在我們的細胞中尋找答案
Sciences
When Bente Klarlund Pedersen wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is pull on her trainers and go for a 5-kilometre run — and it’s not just about staying fit. “It’s when I think and solve problems without knowing it,” says Klarlund Pedersen, who specializes in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Copenhagen. “It’s very important for my well-being.” Whether it’s running or lifting weights, it’s no secret that exercise is good for your health. Research has found that briskly walking for 450 minutes each week is associated with living around 4.5 years longer than doing no leisure-time exercise, and that engaging in regular physical activity can fortify the immune system and stave off chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. But, says Dafna Bar-Sagi, a cell biologist at New York University, the burning question is how does exercise deliver its health-boosting effects? “We know that it is good, but there is still a huge gap in understanding what it is doing to cells,” says Bar-Sagi, who walks on a treadmill for 30 minutes, five days a week In the past decade, researchers have started to build a picture of the vast maze of cellular and molecular processes that are triggered throughout the body during — and even after — a workout. Some of these processes dial down inflammation, whereas others ramp up cellular repair and maintenance. Exercise also prompts cells to release signalling molecules that carry a frenzy of messages between organs and tissues: from muscle cells to the immune and cardiovascular systems, or from the liver to the brain.
---from Nature
當Bente Klarlund Pedersen早上醒來時，她做的第一件事就是穿上運動鞋去跑步5公里—這不僅僅是為了保持健康。「這是我在不知不覺中思考和解決問題的時間，」哥本哈根大學內科和傳染病專家 Klarlund Pedersen 說。「這對我的健康非常重要。」 無論是跑步或是舉重，運動有益於健康已不是秘密。研究發現，每週快走450分鐘比閒暇時不運動可延長壽命約4.5年，並且定期進行體育活動可以增強免疫系統並預防慢性疾病，如癌症、心血管疾病疾病和第二型糖尿病。但是，紐約大學細胞生物學家 Dafna Bar-Sagi 表示，最迫切的問題是，運動如何產生促進健康的效果呢？ 「我們知道它很好，但在了解它對細胞的作用方面仍然存在著很大的差距，」每週5 天、在跑步機上走30分鐘的Bar-Sagi說道。 在過去的十年中，研究人員已經開始描繪出一個細胞和分子圖像的巨大迷宮，它是在運動期間甚至運動後在身體中被觸發。 其中一些過程可以減輕發炎症狀，而另一些過程則可以促進細胞修復和維護。運動也促使細胞釋放信號分子，這些信號分子在器官和組織之間傳遞大量訊息：從肌肉細胞到免疫和心血管系統，或從肝臟到大腦。
---摘錄翻譯自Nature