[News release] Infections can affect your IQ

From the 21 May 2015 Aarhaus news release

New research shows that infections can impair your cognitive ability measured on an IQ scale. The study is the largest of its kind to date, and it shows a clear correlation between infection levels and impaired cognition.

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“Infections can affect the brain directly, but also through peripheral inflammation, which affects the brain and our mental capacity. Infections have previously been associated with both depression and schizophrenia, and it has also been proven to affect the cognitive ability of patients suffering from dementia. This is the first major study to suggest that infections can also affect the brain and the cognitive ability in healthy individuals.”

“We can see that the brain is affected by all types of infections. Therefore, it is important that more research is conducted into the mechanisms which lie behind the connection between a person’s immune system and mental health,” says Michael Eriksen Benrós.

He hopes that learning more about this connection will help to prevent the impairment of people’s mental health and improve future treatment.

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[Press release] Guarded welcome for new type of drug

From the January 2014 news item at Edinburg University

New types of drug intended for use in place of antibiotics have been given a cautious welcome by scientists.

University researchers have been probing the long-term effectiveness of drugs currently being developed by the pharmaceutical industry.

These work by limiting the symptoms caused by a bug or virus in the body, rather than killing it outright.

These treatments are designed to avoid the problem of infections becoming resistant to treatment, which has become widespread with antibiotics.

This approach is intended to enable the patient to tolerate disease, and buy the immune system valuable time to get rid of the infection naturally.

Disease spread

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Liverpool created a mathematical model to look at how at how drugs that limit the damage caused by disease could affect how infections spread and evolve.

They found that for certain infections, where the symptoms are not linked to the spread of disease, these drugs may prevent disease from evolving too quickly.

They will be useful over longer periods of time.

However, scientists caution that people given damage limitation treatments may appear healthy, but carry high levels of infection and so may be more likely to pass on disease.

In addition, people with lesser symptoms could remain undiagnosed and add to the spread of disease.

Their study was published in PLoS Biology.

In treating infections with drugs, we change their environment, but bacteria and other infectious agents are incredibly good at adapting to their environment. Damage limitation therapies may be a useful alternative to antibiotics, but we should be cautious, and investigate their potential long-term consequences. Limiting damage may work for the individual, but could, in some cases, increase disease spread.

Dr Pedro Vale

School of Biological Sciences

 

Related articles

• Researchers’ concern over antibiotics alternative.
• Scientists show how bacteria escape antibiotics
• Could cold meds help spread the flu?
• Cold meds make you ‘feel better – and more infectious’
• Ibuprofen, Other Fever-Reducing Medications May Cause 1,000 Additional Flu Deaths Each Year
• Contagious or Not: A dissection of infectious disease

 

HHS Releases New Online Patient Safety Training Resources for Clinicians and Patient Advocates

Partnering to Heal is a computer-based, interactive learning tool for clinicians, health professional students, and patient advocates.

The training highlights effective communication about infection control practices and what it means to help create a “culture of safety” in healthcare institutions.

From the press release

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health released Partnering to Heal: Teaming Up Against Healthcare-Associated Infections, an interactive learning tool for clinicians, health professional students, and family caregivers.  The training videos include information on basic protocols for universal precautions and isolation precautions to protect patient, visitors, and practitioners from the most common disease transmissions.  The training promotes six key behaviors: teamwork, communication, hand washing, vaccination against the flu, appropriate use of antibiotics, and proper insertion, use, and removal of catheters and ventilators.  Learn how five characters can contribute to—or prevent—risk of several healthcare-associated infections, including surgical site infections, central line-associated bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia, catheter-associated urinary tract infections,clostridium difficile and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.  These resources support the new Partnership for Patients, a new national public-private partnership with hospitals, medical groups, consumer groups, and employers that will help save lives by preventing millions of injuries and complications in patient care over the next 3 years.  Select to read the HHS press release.

Related articles

• Partnering to Heal: Teaming Up Against Healthcare-Associated Infections (thielst.typepad.com)
• Patient Safety Resources (aa47.wordpress.com)
• CDC issues updated bloodstream infection prevention guidelines (physorg.com)