Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Jan. 23, 2023

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Jan. 23, 2023–Jan. 27, 2023.

Bloomberg (1/26, Meghjani) reports, “Less than a third of U.S. adults meet suggested benchmarks for aerobic and muscle-building activities set out by health officials, according to a” study that “analyzed more than 30,000 responses from” the CDC’s “National Health Interview Survey.” The study found that “only 28% of people in the U.S. are actually following those guidelines,” and just “16% of people” living in rural areas are. The findings were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

ABC News (1/26, Kekatos) says the study “looked at the percentage of American adults aged 18 and older who are getting 150 minutes of moderate exercise and two days of muscle strengthening per week,” finding that “just 46.9% of adults across the country are currently meeting one of those guidelines.”

HealthDay (1/25, Mozes) reports, “Teens who regularly fail to get a good night’s sleep may face a higher risk for developing multiple sclerosis (MS) as adults,” investigators concluded in a study that “focused on nearly 2,100 adult” patients with MS “and about 3,200 randomly selected healthy adult peers up to the age of 70.” The study revealed that “sleeping too little or experiencing poor sleep quality [as a teen] increased the risk of later developing MS by up to 50%.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry

CNN (1/24, Howard) reports, “An estimated 1 in about 13,500 people in the United States may have VEXAS syndrome, a...study suggests, which means the mysterious and sometimes deadly inflammatory disorder may be more common than previously thought.” This study, published in JAMA, “suggests that about 1 in 13,591 people in the U.S. have mutations in the UBA1 gene, which develop later in life and cause VEXAS syndrome.”

Healio (1/24, Martin) reports that overall, “disease-causing UBA1 variants were” also discovered in “1 out of 4,269 men older than 50 years...and in 1 out of 26,238 women older than 50 years.”

MedPage Today (1/24, Fiore) reports the inflammatory disease was first identified “in a December 2020 report in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

The Washington Post (1/23, A1, McGinley) reports, “Americans would receive an annual vaccine to protect against the coronavirus under a once-a-year regimen akin to what is used for influenza shots, according to a new strategy outlined Monday by the Food and Drug Administration.” The FDA, “in briefing documents released in advance of a meeting this week with its vaccine advisers, said the goal is to determine in the spring which strain will pose the greatest threat the following winter.” The Post adds, “A vaccine targeting that strain would then be administered in the fall, in the hopes that a streamlined effort would encourage vaccine uptake.”

Reuters (1/23, Leo) reports the FDA “also asked its panel of external advisers to consider the usage of two COVID vaccine shots a year for some young children, older adults and persons with compromised immunity.” Reuters adds, “If the panel votes in favor of the proposal, Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc’s bivalent vaccines, which target both the Omicron and the original variants, would be used for all COVID vaccine doses, and not just as boosters.”

NBC News (1/23, Lovelace) reports these “proposals will be put before its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on Thursday.”

The Washington Post (1/22, A1, Nirappil) reports that across the U.S., “the RSV wave has receded,” influenza “cases have rapidly dwindled,” and COVID-19 “hospitalizations rose briefly after Christmas, only to fall again.” The “early waves of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza peaked before the new year, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” and “the expected winter uptick of coronavirus is nowhere close to overwhelming hospitals.” Still, “experts caution the country could see additional increases in flu, which sometimes has two peaks, and another RSV season in spring,” and warn the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 could continue to spread.

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