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Bigum Blackburn posted an update 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Compared to angiotensin inhibition, angiotensin-neprilysin “blockade” improves mortality and reduces hospitalizations in patients with heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (EF). Sacubitril/valsartan is known to influence left ventricular (LV) reverse remodeling with systolic function improvement, although underlying mechanisms remain partially unclear. Our objectives were to evaluate whether sacubitril/valsartan promotes LV remodeling and improves LV ejection fraction (LVEF) (above the 35% threshold by echocardiographic evaluation) and to identify predictors of reverse remodeling in a real-world setting.
New York Heart Association (NYHA) class II-III patients with EF≤35% were consecutively enrolled. All patients were on optimal medical therapy on the initiation of sacubitril/valsartan therapy. Full clinical and multi-parametric echocardiographic evaluation, electrocardiogram, and laboratory tests were performed at baseline and after 3, 6, 12, and 24months.
In total, 69 patients were recruited from July 2016 to August 2018. Reverse remodeling was observed in 57.7% (30/52) of patients, occurring within 3, 6, 12, and 24months in 2, 11, 13, and 4 patients, respectively. Twenty-four (46%) patients showed LVEF improvement above the threshold of 35% during follow-up, occurring in 1, 10, 9, and 4 patients within 3, 6, 12, and 24months, respectively. Primitive dilated cardiomyopathy and female gender were identified as significant predictors of reverse remodeling. NYHA class was improved in both remodeling and non-remodeling patients.
Sacubitril/valsartan promotes favorable cardiac remodeling and significantly improves LVEF in a significant proportion of HF patients within 24months, both in NYHA class II and III patients with HF.
Sacubitril/valsartan promotes favorable cardiac remodeling and significantly improves LVEF in a significant proportion of HF patients within 24 months, both in NYHA class II and III patients with HF.
Having sufficient healthcare access helps individuals proactively manage their health challenges, leading to positive long-term health outcomes. In the U.S., healthcare access is a public health issue as many Americans lack the physical or financial resources to receive the healthcare services they need. Mental healthcare is especially difficult due to lingering social stigmas and scarcity of services. Subsequently, those with mental health impairment tend to be complex patients, which may convolute delivery of services.
To quantify the prevalence of barriers to healthcare access among U.S. adults with and without mental health challenges (MHC) and evaluate the relationship between MHC and no usual source of care (NUSC).
A cross-sectional study was conducted with data from the 2017-2018 National Health Interview Survey. MHC was categorized into three levels no (NPD), moderate (MPD) and severe (SPD) psychological distress. Eight barriers were quantified; one was used as the primary outcome NUSC. Multivarrriers to healthcare access link to issues with affordability, and MHC exist more often when any barrier is reported. More work is needed to understand the acuity of burden as other social and environmental factors may hold effect.Understanding and responding to adverse human health impacts of global environmental change will be a major priority of 21st century public health professionals. The emerging field of planetary health aims to face this challenge by studying and promoting policies that protect the health of humans and of the Earth’s natural systems that support them. Public health, drawing on its experience of guiding policies to improve population health, has contributed to planetary health’s development. Yet, few public health practitioners are familiar with planetary health’s systems-oriented approaches for understanding relationships between economic development, environmental degradation, and human health. In this narrative review, we present key planetary health concepts and show how systems thinking has guided its development. We discuss historical approaches to studying impacts of economic development on human health and the environment. We then review novel conceptual frameworks adopted by planetary health scientists to study and forecast impacts of policies that influence human health and Earth’s natural systems at varying spatiotemporal scales. We conclude by presenting examples of how applying the “Doughnut” model (an economic framework where the needs of people are met without overshooting the world’s ecological limits) could guide policies for promoting health co-benefits to humans and natural systems.Bats and rodents comprise two of the world’s largest orders of mammals and the order Chiroptera (bats) has been implicated as a major reservoir of coronaviruses in nature and a source of zoonotic transfer to humans. However, the order Rodentia (rodents) also harbors coronaviruses, with two human coronaviruses (HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1) considered to have rodent origins. check details The coronavirus spike protein mediates viral entry and is a major determinant of viral tropism; importantly, the spike protein is activated by host cell proteases at two distinct sites, designated as S1/S2 and S2′. SARS-CoV-2, which is considered to be of bat origin, contains a cleavage site for the protease furin at S1/S2, absent from the rest of the currently known betacoronavirus lineage 2b coronaviruses (Sarbecoviruses). This cleavage site is thought to be critical to its replication and pathogenesis, with a notable link to virus transmission. Here, we examine the spike protein across coronaviruses identified in both bat and rodent species and address the role of furin as an activating protease. Utilizing two publicly available furin prediction algorithms (ProP and PiTou) and based on spike sequences reported in GenBank, we show that the S1/S2 furin cleavage site is typically not present in bat virus spike proteins but is common in rodent-associated sequences, and suggest this may have implications for zoonotic transfer. We provide a phylogenetic history of the Embecoviruses (betacoronavirus lineage 2a), including context for the use of furin as an activating protease for the viral spike protein. From a One Health perspective, continued rodent surveillance should be an important consideration in uncovering novel circulating coronaviruses.