Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Sept. 26, 2022

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Sept. 26, 2022–Sept. 30, 2022.

HealthDay (9/29, Murez) reports pregnant people with a COVID-19 infection who “then get vaccinated before giving birth are more likely than other moms to pass protective antibodies to their newborns, new research shows.” The data indicate that “at birth, 78% of their babies had detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2,” including “all of the babies born to vaccinated moms and about three out of four whose mothers were unvaccinated.” Researchers “concluded that even if women had COVID-19 during pregnancy, vaccinating them as well may be an effective strategy to boost their antibodies and also those in infants too young for their own shots.” The study was published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The Washington Post (9/28, Reiley) reports, “The Food and Drug Administration announced new rules Wednesday for nutrition labels that can go on the front of food packages to indicate that they are ‘healthy.’” Under the new rules, “manufacturers can label their products ‘healthy’ if they contain a meaningful amount of food from at least one of the food groups or subgroups (such as fruit, vegetable or dairy) recommended by the dietary guidelines,” and “adhere to specific limits for certain nutrients, such as saturated fat, sodium and added sugars.” According to the CDC, 60% of “American adults have chronic lifestyle-related diseases, often stemming from obesity and poor diet.”

CNN (9/27, Hassan) reports physicians “should prepare for a possible increase in young patients with enterovirus D68, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday, and that may be linked to more cases of the rare, paralyzing condition acute flaccid myelitis.” Beyond AFM, physicians are also “urged to test for poliovirus in people suspected of having AFM because of the similarity in symptoms.”

Bloomberg Law (9/27, Muller, Subscription Publication) reports, “The most common signs and symptoms seen in hospitalized children” with enterovirus D68 infection “have been shortness of breath or rapid, shallow breathing, wheezing, coughing and nasal congestion.”

Healio (9/26, Downey) reports, “Multimorbidity was associated with a 63% increased risk for incident dementia, with the greatest risk linked to hypertension and diabetes,” investigators concluded findings published online in JAMA Network Open. The study also revealed that “the global prevalence of dementia is projected to increase from 57 million to 153 million individuals by 2050—a threefold increase.” Data from the U.K. Biobank cohort was used in this study.

HealthDay (9/23, Munez) reported, “An increased risk of blood clots persists for close to a year after a COVID-19 infection, a large study shows.” HealthDay added, “The health records of 48 million unvaccinated adults in the United Kingdom suggest that the pandemic’s first wave in 2020 may have led to an additional 10,500 cases of heart attack, stroke and other blood clot complications such as deep vein thrombosis, in England and Wales alone.” Investigators found that “the risk of blood clots continues for at least 49 weeks after infection.” The findings were published in Circulation.

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