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Catching up on social media, answering your emails, and tweaking your phone apps may increase your risk of developing hemorrhoids by some 46%. This the conclusion of a survey by Harvard gastroenterologists at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital presented at Digestive Diseases Week 2025.

The study polled 125 participants using a standard questionnaire covering gastrointestinal symptoms. Of the group, two-thirds used their phones while toileting and more than half of those, 55%, were on the device at every sitting. This phone use resulted in significantly more time spent on the toilet.

You can’t totally blame your smartphone. Those same hemorrhoids would develop should you sit longer on the “throne” reading a book or completing your daily crossword puzzle.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/using-smartphones-toilet-increases-hemorrhoid-risk-2025a1000asx

#smartphones #toilet #hemorrhoids

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ99O5AtU8W/

Loss of vision due to retinal degeneration is a devastating complication of diabetes. Now Johns Hopkins research ophthalmologists report in the journal Science Translational Medicine preclinical studies that demonstrate how low blood sugar episodes, known as hypoglycemia, that are experienced by diabetics trigger the development of the blinding retinal damage known as diabetic retinopathy.

Studying diabetic mice, the investigators discovered that levels of the protein hypoxia-inducible factor or HIF increase as blood sugar levels decline. HIF, in turn, initiates harmful retinal blood vessel leaks with exposure of retinal cells to toxic circulating elements. This leads to the retinal degeneration characteristic of diabetic retinopathy. Low blood sugar levels fail to induce this toxic chain reaction in non-diabetic mice.

The best news is that a drug labeled as 32-134D capably blocks the production of HIF and the increase in retinal blood vessel permeability responsible for diabetic retinopathy. This discovery sets the stage for the development of pharmaceutical agents with similar vision-preserving capabilities.

Meanwhile, if you are an insulin-dependent type 1 diabetic of any age, know that stringent control of your blood sugars should emphasize the prevention of hypoglycemic episodes. Speak with your medical team and develop insulin dosing strategies that fulfill this goal. Know how to recognize hypoglycemia and be prepared with foods to counteract it.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adq5355

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/05/250506105340.htm

#diabetes #hypoglycemia #hif #diabeticretinopathy #32134D

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The poisoning of pets, particularly cats, by a common over-the-counter topical drug has surged nearly 1000% over the past decade. The drug is minoxidil, better known by its brand name Romaine. This medication is often applied as a foam or as a liquid by many men and some women in an effort to regrow hair on their balding scalps. It turns out that minoxidil is toxic to animals, particularly cats, since they lack the liver enzymes to properly metabolize it. Most animals are exposed to minoxidil by licking off human skin or absorbing it through their own skin after resting on contaminated surfaces.

Dematologists at New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College have performed a meta-analysis of literature studies reporting the adverse effects of this drug on cats and some dogs.

The review found 94 animals were poisoned by minoxidil, and that number included 65 cats and 26 dogs. Nearly all, 98% of the animals exposed to minoxidil required hospitalizations. This drug killed about 15% of the cats but none of the dogs due to lower feline body weights and fewer liver enzymes. The sickened animals developed heart failure, pulmonary edema, and serious metabolic disorders including metabolic acidosis, low blood sugar, hepatitis, and pancreatitis.

If you have minoxidil and cats and/or dogs in your home, be extremely careful about how you use the drug around your pets. Their health and lives could depend on it. Store this product safely, wash your hands after use, keep pets away from recently treated areas, and discard used materials in sealed bins. If you have a pet and need to use minoxidil, you can ask your medical team about switching to an oral formulation that would be safer for your pets.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019096222500595X

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/inside-topical-minoxidils-toxic-threat-household-pets-2025a1000beg

#minoxidil #rogaine #cats #dogs #poisoning

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ973rkpYqU/

When your hairdresser carefully looks at your scalp while styling your locks, there is a good chance that a funky looking mole or growth they notice could turn out to be a skin cancer. So conclude researchers from from the UK’s University of Portsmouth in a study published in the journal Skin Health and Disease.

They surveyed 37 hair stylists and barbers in the city of Portsmouth, England. Only 5% of the group had any formal training and only one in four were actively looking at clients’ skin for the purpose of detecting lesions. Even so, 35% had told clients to check in with their medical teams for inspection of suspicious lesions. When they did, 39% of these clients were diagnosed with skin cancer.

The hair professionals overwhelming embraced the idea of screening for skin lesions, and 92% of them wanted skin cancer awareness training. Nearly two-thirds of the group stated that the lack of formal training was the reason they weren’t probing their clients’ scalps already.

The bottom line: when you are getting your hair cut, styled, colored, permed, or otherwise transformed, ask your stylist or barber to check your scalp for anything that looks unusual. If they find it, hand them your phone and have them snap a picture. You can then ask your medical team for an in-person exam or a formal dermatology consult.

https://academic.oup.com/skinhd/advance-article/doi/10.1093/skinhd/vzaf015/8117746?login=false

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-hairdressers-early-skin-cancer.html#google_vignette

#hairstylists #barbers# #scalplesions #skincancer

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ97JnMM5vF/

Diabetics with type 1 disease, that is insulin-dependent, must receive insulin injections for the rest of their lives since their own pancreatic tissue fails to produce sufficient quantities of this vital hormone. Efforts to solve this problem include whole organ pancreas transplants and transplants of the insulin-producing beta pancreatic islet cells.

One problem is a large enough supply of these beta islet cells. Enter endocrinologists and regenerative medicine researchers at the Netherland’s Leiden University who have developed methods to better isolate large numbers of stem cells that have been transformed into the insulin-producing beta islet cells. Their studies are now published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Their technique employs density gravity centrifuges to optimally isolate just those stem-cell derived islet cells that will capably produce insulin once transplanted into their human recipients. Their system has undergone successful preclinical trials in diabetic mice. It is more effective and efficient than other cell sorting techniques, and it can be scaled up to produce the large qualities of beta islet cells that will be required for human trials.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adl4390

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-technique-architecture-insulin-islet-cells.html#google_vignette

#diabetes #insulin #stemcells #betaisletcells #centrifugation

Tap Water Spray

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Irrigating and cleansing your nasal linings with saline can resolve nasal congestion, help manage or even prevent nasal allergies, prevent nosebleeds, and hasten your resolution of the common cold. To reap these benefits, you must use the proper water. Making the all too common mistakes of using tap water and not properly cleansing the irrigation devices can lead to brain infections and death.

Though tap water in most communities is filtered and purified to kill harmful germs and remove toxic impurities, some treacherous microorganisms like brain-eating amoebae and or molds, fungi, can slip through. Stomach acid kills these bugs, but the nasal linings have no such protective device. Worse still, when you spray tap water into your nose, openings in the roof of the nasal cavity provide ready access for these germs into your brain resulting in a life-threatening infection called encephalitis.

The companies that market irrigators whether the simple Neti Pot or the more sophisticated motorized irrigators such as the Navage and the NasalFresh MD are careful to instruct their buyers, namely you, to only use distilled or boiled water to which you must add a package of salts in order to create, in essence, a sterile saline solution with proper acidity and salt levels. Problem is that some don’t read or follow instructions.

The CDC, FDA, and I recommend regular nasal irrigations. The easiest and safest way to do this is to use sterile aerosol saline. This type of product was pioneered by Arm and Hammer’s Simply Saline but is now available from numerous companies as NeilMed’s Nasal Wash, Sinex Ultrafine Nasal Mist, and SinuCleanse Sterile Saline Nasal Spray.

While you can purchase sterile saline in pre-filled squeeze bottles, I caution against doing so and favor sealed aerosol canisters. With the squeeze bottles, releasing the squeeze can suck nasal snot, definitely not sterile, into the bottle where bacteria and other germs are free to grow at room temperatures. When you next spray the saline, these nasty organisms can easily find their way into your brain.

https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/rinsing-your-sinuses-neti-pots-safe

#saline #nasalspray #netipots #irrigators #infection #braineatingamoebae

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ95dMcNFoP/

Twice as many Americans have developed the whooping cough or pertussis this year as last year, and four have died. Half of them were little children. There are two reasons: ONE — vaccinations have fallen off due to misinformation and bad medical advice; and TWO — the latest vaccines provide protection for shorter periods of time.

Keep in mind that whooping cough protection is provided by the so-called DTaP and Tdap vaccines that guard against diphtheria and tetanus as well as pertussis. The newest vaccines are so called partial-cell vaccines, and their beneficial effects wear off as quickly as 3 years.

Know that children should receive 5 doses of these vaccines by age 4. Teens require a booster by age 12 and adults also require boosters every 10 years. Pregnant women should receive a booster during their third trimester in order to protect their newborns.

These vaccines are safe and 98% effective. A temporarily sore arm or a mild fever is a small price to pay to avoid a hospitalization or death.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-whooping-comeback-vaccine-powerful.html

#whoopingcough #pertussis #dTaP #vaccination #pregnancy

Vidcast: https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ94uS2xc3A/

Bladder control is about to go high tech. When a man loses his ability to control his urine flow, technically called incontinence, which is often a complication of prostate cancer surgery, a variety of strategies come into play. One of these is a mechanical valve has been used for years to help him prevent embarrassing accidents. Manufactured by the Boston Scientific Company and named the AMS 800, the device uses an implanted squeeze ball pump to control an air-powered valve.

Just reported to the American Urological Association’s 2025 Annual Meeting are the very promising results of pilot study using a wirelessly controlled artificial urinary valve called the UroActive. Manufactured by the UroMems company, the implantable control device is activated by a patient remote button. The electronically activated valve around the ureter then controls urine flow.

The UroActive can also bring relief to women suffering from significant stress incontinence problems. Work is also ongoing to permit device control from your smartphone. It well be soon possible to say, “Siri…help me relieve myself or even Siri….I need to pee.”

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/digital-innovation-coming-soon-incontinence-care-2025a10009w2?ecd=a2a

#incontinence #prostate #stress #uroactive #uromems #ams800