Why Legionnaires’ Disease Is In New York Now

…and other items from this week’s health news:

It’s a good time to be a Legionella pneumophila bacterium

Dozens of confirmed cases of of Legionnaires’ disease have been reported in Manhattan, prompting New York City health officials to investigate nearly 160 building cooling towers, as contaminated mist from cooling towers can travel through the air, exposing people who pass nearby.

But it’s not just cooling towers that are to blame, as many water systems can harbor Legionella bacteria including hot tubs, decorative fountains, industrial equipment, floor scrubbers, water jet cutters, and even contaminated windshield washer fluid.

The key problem, and why this appears to be getting worse each year, is that hotter temperatures create more favorable conditions for Legionella bacteria to grow in warm water systems.

❝This is now a subtropical climate. It is absolutely true that climate change is worsening our exposure and increasing the propensity for legionnaires’ disease clusters like we’re seeing today.❞

~ Dr. Alister Martin, Commissioner of the New York City Health Department

Legionnaires’ disease has about a 10% mortality rate (i.e. 1 in 10 people diagnosed with it will die, on average).

Read in full: Legionnaires’ outbreak rocks New York as experts warn of rising climate threat

Related: Dodging Dengue In The US ← a threat that’s also rising for mostly the same reason

Migraines? Have you thought of sticking needles in your ears about it?

Please do not stick needles in your ears.

However, researchers (Dr. Fernanda Belle et al.) investigated whether auriculotherapy (ear acupuncture) could reduce pain and improve quality of life in women with chronic migraine.

It was a fairly small (n=68) study, with women who had chronic migraine with symptoms such as moderate to severe headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and sometimes aura.

There was an intervention group (acupuncture) and a control group (sham acupuncture, i.e. needles inserted but not in the “proper” places), and both groups experienced statistically significant pain reductions over time, but there was no statistically significant difference between the auriculotherapy and sham groups. This means the study could not demonstrate that auriculotherapy worked better than the sham procedure.

In other words, the improvement seen in both groups suggests that ear stimulation itself, regardless of the exact points used, might be influencing pain-related pathways, although the mechanism remains unclear. The researchers’ current best guess is that it might have to do with vagus nerve stimulation (the vagus nerve runs past the ears).

Read in full: Ear acupuncture may reduce migraine pain, study suggests

Related: Pinpointing The Usefulness Of Acupuncture

Older adults hit hardest by mental health and behavioral disorders in the heat

If you’ve been feeling a bit more adversarial than usual lately, you’re not alone.

A big study analyzed more than 2.6 million heatwave hospitalizations from 852 locations, and found:

• these heatwaves were associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for mental and behavioral disorders
• the increased risk of mental health-related hospitalization was most pronounced in older adults and people living in low-population-density (rural) areas

The prevailing hypothesis as to why this happens is because older adults and some people with chronic illnesses are less able to cope with extreme heat, and prolonged heat can increase irritability, anxiety, agitation, and adverse behavioral changes in general. Medications that reduce heat tolerance (also more common in older populations) are likely to play an additional part, too.

Read in full: Older adults face greater risk of mental health hospitalizations during extreme heatwaves

Related: The Common Meds That Make You Much More Susceptible To Heatstroke

Take care!