Here’s how to help protect babies and kids from RSV
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What you need to know
- RSV is a respiratory virus that is especially dangerous for babies and young children.
- There are two ways to help protect babies from RSV: vaccination during pregnancy and giving babies nirsevimab, an RSV antibody shot.
- If someone in your household has RSV, watch for signs of severe illness and take steps to help prevent it from spreading.
Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a very contagious seasonal respiratory illness that is especially dangerous for infants and young children. Cases rose dramatically last month, and an increasing number of kids and older adults with RSV are being hospitalized across the United States.
Fortunately, pregnant people can get vaccinated during pregnancy or get their infants and young children an RSV antibody shot to help them stay healthy.
Read on to learn about symptoms of RSV, how to help prevent infants and children from getting very sick, and what families should do if someone in their household is sick with the virus.
What are the symptoms of RSV in babies and young children?
RSV symptoms in young children may include a runny nose, decreased eating and drinking, and coughing, which may lead to wheezing and difficulty breathing.
Infants with RSV may show symptoms like irritability, decreased activity and appetite, and life-threatening pauses in breathing (apnea) that last for more than 10 seconds. Most infants with RSV will not develop a fever, but babies who are born prematurely, have weakened immune systems, or have chronic lung disease are more likely to become very sick.
Who is eligible for an RSV antibody shot?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that babies younger than 8 months whose gestational parent did not receive an RSV vaccine during pregnancy receive nirsevimab between October and March, when RSV typically peaks. This antibody shot delivers proteins that can help protect them against RSV.
Nirsevimab is also recommended for children between 8 and 19 months who are at increased risk of severe RSV, including children who are born prematurely, have chronic lung disease or severe cystic fibrosis, are immunocompromised, or are American Indians or Alaska Natives.
Nirsevimab is typically covered by insurance or costs $495 out of pocket. Children who are eligible for the CDC’s Vaccines for Children Program can receive nirsevimab at no cost.
How can families help prevent RSV from spreading?
It’s recommended that children and adults who are sick with RSV stay home and away from others. If your infant or child has difficulty breathing or develops blue or gray skin, take them to an emergency room right away.
People who are infected with RSV can spread the disease when they cough or sneeze; have close contact with others; or touch, cough, or sneeze on shared surfaces. Help protect your family from catching and spreading RSV at home and in public places by ensuring that everyone covers their mouths during coughing and sneezing, washes their hands often, and wears a high-quality, well-fitting mask.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Dancing vs Parkinson’s Depression
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This is a fun study, and the results are/were very predictable, and/but not necessarily something that people might think of in advance. First, let’s look at how some things work:
Parkinson’s disease & depression
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neurological disease that, amongst other things, is characterized by low dopamine levels.
For the general signs and symptoms, see: Recognize The Early Symptoms Of Parkinson’s Disease
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of reward, is involved in our language faculties and the capacity to form plans (even simple plans such as “make a cup of coffee”) as well as being critical for motor functions.
See also: Neurotransmitter Cheatsheet ← for demystifying some of “what does what” for commonly-conflated chemicals
You can see, therefore, why Parkinson’s disease will often have depression as a comorbidity—there may be influencing social factors as well (many Parkinson’s disease sufferers are quite socially isolated, which certainly does not help), but a clear neurochemical factor that we can point to is “a person with low dopamine levels will feel joyless, bored, and unmotivated”.
Let movement be thy medicine
Parkinson’s disease medications, therefore, tend to involve increasing dopamine levels and/or the brain’s ability to use dopamine.
Antidepressant medications, however, are more commonly focused on serotonin, as serotonin is another neurotransmitter associated with happiness—it’s the one we get when we look at open green spaces with occasional trees and a blue sky ← we get it in other ways too, but for evolutionary reasons, it seems our brains still yearn the most for landscapes that look like the Serengeti, even if we have never even been there personally.
There are other kinds of antidepressants too, and (because depression can have different causes) what works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. See: Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!
In the case of Parkinson’s disease, because the associated depression is mostly dopamine-related, those green spaces and blue skies and SSRIs won’t help much. But you know what does?
Dance!
A recent (published last month, at time of writing) study by Dr. Karolina Bearss et al. did an interventional study that found that dance classes significantly improved both subjective experience of depression, and objective brain markers of depression, across people with (68%) and without (32%) Parkinson’s disease.
The paper is quite short and it has diagrams, and discusses the longer-term effect as well as the per-session effect:
Dance is thought to have a double-effect, improving both cognitive factors and motor control factors, for obvious reasons, and all related to dopamine response (dancing is an activity we are hardwired to find rewarding*, plus it is exercise which also triggers various chemicals to be made, plus it is social, which also improves many mental health factors).
*You may have heard the expression that “dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”, and while that may not be true for everyone on an individual level, on a species level it is a very reasonable hypothesis for why we do it and why it is the way it is.
Want to learn more?
We wrote previously about battling depression (of any kind) here:
The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
Take care!
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Castor Oil: All-Purpose Life-Changer, Or Snake Oil?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
As “trending” health products go, castor oil is enjoying a lot of popularity presently, lauded as a life-changing miracle-worker, and social media is abuzz with advice to put it everywhere from your eyes to your vagina.
But:
- what things does science actually say it’s good for,
- what things lack evidence, and
- what things go into the category of “wow definitely do not do that”?
We don’t have the space to go into all of its proposed uses (there are simply far too many), but we’ll examine some common ones:
To heal/improve the skin barrier
Like most oils, it’s functional as a moisturizer. In particular, its high (90%!) ricinoleic fatty acid content does indeed make it good at that, and furthermore, has properties that can help reduce skin inflammation and promote wound healing:
Bioactive polymeric formulations for wound healing ← there isn’t a conveniently quotable summary we can just grab here, but you can see the data and results, from which we can conclude:
- formulations with ricinoleic acid (such as with castor oil) performed very well for topical anti-inflammatory purposes
- they avoided the unwanted side effects associated with some other contenders
- they consistently beat other preparations in the category of wound-healing
To support hair growth and scalp health
There is no evidence that it helps. We’d love to provide a citation for this, but it’s simply not there. There’s also no evidence that it doesn’t help. For whatever reason, despite its popularity, peer-reviewed science has simply not been done for this, or if it has, it wasn’t anywhere publicly accessible.
It’s possible that if a person is suffering hair loss specifically as a result of prostaglandin D2 levels, that ricinoleic acid will inhibit the PGD2, reversing the hair loss, but even this is hypothetical so far, as the science is currently only at the step before that:
However, due to some interesting chemistry, the combination of castor oil and warm water can result in acute (and irreversible) hair felting, in other words, the strands of hair suddenly glue together to become one mass which then has to be cut off:
“Castor Oil” – The Culprit of Acute Hair Felting
👆 this is a case study, which is generally considered a low standard of evidence (compared to high-quality Randomized Controlled Trials as the highest standard of evidence), but let’s just say, this writer (hi, it’s me) isn’t risking her butt-length hair on the off-chance, and doesn’t advise you to, either. There are other hair-oils out there; argan oil is great, coconut oil is totally fine too.
As a laxative
This time, there’s a lot of evidence, and it’s even approved for this purpose by the FDA, but it can be a bit too good, insofar as taking too much can result in diarrhea and uncomfortable cramping (the cramps are a feature not a bug; the mechanism of action is stimulatory, i.e. it gets the intestines squeezing, but again, it can result in doing that too much for comfort):
Castor Oil: FDA-Approved Indications
To soothe dry eyes
While putting oil in your eyes may seem dubious, this is another one where it actually works:
❝Castor oil is deemed safe and tolerable, with strong anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive, analgesic, antioxidant, wound healing and vasoconstrictive properties.
These can supplement deficient physiological tear film lipids, enabling enhanced lipid spreading characteristics and reducing aqueous tear evaporation.
Studies reveal that castor oil applied topically to the ocular surface has a prolonged residence time, facilitating increased tear film lipid layer thickness, stability, improved ocular surface staining and symptoms.❞
Source: Therapeutic potential of castor oil in managing blepharitis, meibomian gland dysfunction and dry eye
Against candidiasis (thrush)
We couldn’t find science for (or against) castor oil’s use against vaginal candidiasis, but here’s a study that investigated its use against oral candidiasis:
…in which castor oil was the only preparation that didn’t work against the yeast.
Summary
We left a lot unsaid today (so many proposed uses, it feels like a shame to skip them), but in few words: it’s good for skin (including wound healing) and eyes; but we’d give it a miss for hair, candidiasis, and digestive disorders.
Want to try some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Take care!
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The Unchaste Berry
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A Chasteberry, By Any Other Name…
Vitex agnus castus, literally “chaste lamb vine”, hence its modern common English name “chasteberry”, gets its name from its traditional use as an anaphrodisiac for monks (indeed, it’s also called “monk’s pepper”), which traditional use is not in the slightest backed up by modern science.
Nor is its second most popular traditional use (the increase in production of milk) well-supported by science either:
❝Its traditional use as a galactagogue (i.e., a substance that enhances breast milk production) is not well supported in the literature and should be discouraged. There are no clinical data to support the use of chasteberry for reducing sexual desire, which has been a traditional application❞
Source: American Family Physician | Chasteberry
Both of those supposed effects of the chasteberry go against the fact that it has a prolactin-lowering effect:
❝It appears that [chasteberry] may represent a potentially useful and safe phytotherapic option for the management of selected patients with mild hyperprolactinaemia who wish to be treated with phytotherapy.❞
Source: Vitex agnus castus effects on hyperprolactinaemia
Prolactin, by the way, is the hormone that (as the name suggests) stimulates milk production, and also reduces sexual desire (and motivation in general)
- In most women, it spikes during breastfeeding
- In most men, it spikes after orgasm
- In both, it can promote anhedonic depression, as it antagonizes dopamine
In other words, the actual pharmacological effect of chasteberry, when it comes to prolactin, is the opposite of what we would expect from its traditional use.
Ok, so it’s an unchaste berry after all…. Does it have any other claims to examine?
Yes! It genuinely does help relieve PMS, for those who have it, and reduce menopause symptoms, for those who have those, for example:
❝Dry extract of agnus castus fruit is an effective and well tolerated treatment for the relief of symptoms of the premenstrual syndrome.❞
❝That [Vitex agnus castus] trial indicated strong symptomatic relief of common menopausal symptoms❞
Source: Vitex agnus castus essential oil and menopausal balance: a research update
Is it safe?
Generally speaking, yes. It has been described as “well-tolerated” in the studies we mentioned above, which means it has a good safety profile.
However, it may interfere with some antipsychotic medications, certain kinds of hormone replacement therapy, or hormonal birth control.
As ever, speak with your doctor/pharmacist if unsure!
Where can I get some?
We don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon
Enjoy!
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Eat to Beat Disease – by Dr. William Li
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Dr. William Li asks the important question: is your diet feeding disease, or defeating it?
Because everything we put in our bodies makes our health just a little better—or just a little worse. Ok, sometimes a lot worse.
But for most people, when it comes to diet, it’s a death of a thousand cuts of unhealthy food. And that’s what he looks to fix with this book.
The good news: Dr. Li (while not advocating for unhealthy eating, of course), focuses less on what to restrict, and more on what to include. This book covers hundreds of such healthy foods, and ideas (practical, useful ones!) on incorporating them daily, including dozens of recipes.
He mainly looks at five ways our food can help us with…
- Angiogenesis (blood vessel replacement)
- Regeneration (of various bodily organs and systems)
- Microbiome health (and all of its knock-on effects)
- DNA protection (and thus slower cellular aging)
- Immunity (defending the body while also reducing autoimmune problems)
The style is simple and explanatory; Dr. Li is a great educator. Reading this isn’t a difficult read, but you’ll come out of it feeling like you just did a short course in health science.
Bottom line: if you’d like an easy way to improve your health in an ongoing and sustainable way, then this book can help you do just that.
Click here to check out Eat To Beat Disease, and eat to beat disease!
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Staying Strong: Tips To Prevent Muscle Loss With Age
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Dr. Andrea Furlan, specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation with 30 years of experience, has advice:
Fighting sarcopenia
Sarcopenia is so common as to be considered “natural”, but “natural” does not mean “obligatory” and it certainly doesn’t mean “healthy”. As for how to fight it?
You may be thinking “let us guess, is it eat protein and do resistance exercises? And yes it is, but that’s only part of it…
Firstly, she recommends remembering why you are doing this, or because understanding is key to compliance (i.e. your perfect diet and exercise program will mean nothing if you don’t actually do it, and you won’t do it enough to make it a habit, let alone keep it up, if the reasons aren’t clear in your mind).
Sarcopenia comes with an increased risk of falls, reduced physical capacity in general, resultant disability, social isolation, and depression. Of course, this is not a one-to-one equation; you will not necessarily become depressed the moment your muscle mass is below a certain percentage, but statistically speaking, the road to ruin is laid out clearly.
Secondly, she recommends being on the lookout for it. If you check your body composition regularly with a gadget, that’s great and laudable; if you don’t, then a) consider getting one (here’s an example product on Amazon), and b) watch out for decreased muscle strength, fatigue, reduced stamina, noticeable body shape changes with muscle loss and (likely) fat gain.
Thirdly, she recommends more than just regular resistance training and good protein intake. Yes, she recommends those things too, but also getting enough water (can’t rebuild the body without it), avoiding a sedentary lifestyle (sitting leads to atrophy of many supporting and stabilizing muscles, you know, the kind of muscles that don’t look flashy but stop you falling down), and getting good sleep—vital for all kinds of body maintenance, and muscle maintenance is no exception (there’s a reason bodybuilders sleep 9–12 hours daily when in a gaining phase; you don’t need to do that, but don’t skimp on your 7–9 hours, yes, really, even you, yes, at any age).
Lastly, she recommends continuing to learn about the topic, as otherwise it’s easy to go off-track.
For more information on all of the above and more, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?
- Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
- Resistance Beyond Weights
- HIIT, But Make It HIRT ← this is about high-intensity resistance training (HIRT); confusing the muscles like one confuses the heart in HIIT, which thus yields improved results
- Sleep: Yes, You Really Do Still Need It
Take care!
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Here’s the latest you need to know about bird flu
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What you need to know
- Although bird flu continues to spread in wild birds, livestock, and humans, the risk to the public remains low.
- The majority of U.S. bird flu cases have been reported in farm workers who had direct contact with infected birds and cattle. Health officials are working to monitor the spread of the virus and improve protections for those most at risk.
- Recent data suggests that mutations in bird flu viruses could make them more dangerous to humans and potentially increase the risk of a pandemic.
- On January 6, Louisiana health officials confirmed the first U.S. death from bird flu.
Throughout 2024, dozens of human cases of H5N1 bird flu were detected as the virus spreads rapidly in livestock. The current risk to humans is low but not nonexistent. Here’s everything you need to know about the current status and future outlook of H5 bird flu in the United States.
Current U.S. bird flu status (as of January 6, 2025)
As of January 6, 66 human bird flu cases have been reported in eight states. Over half of all cases are in California. The state’s governor declared a state of emergency as a “proactive” action against bird flu on December 18.
On January 6, the Louisiana Department of Health reported the first U.S. bird flu death. The patient, a man over age 65, was previously confirmed to be the first severe bird flu case in the U.S. and the first case linked to backyard flocks. The department emphasized that the risk to the public is low and that no new cases or evidence of human transmission have been detected in the state.
All but two human bird flu cases this year were in farm workers who were exposed to infected livestock. The exposure source of the remaining cases—one in California and one in Missouri—is unknown.
The CDC reported on November 22 that a child in California tested positive for bird flu, the first known pediatric bird flu case in the U.S. However, it is unclear how the child contracted the virus, as they had no known contact with infected animals.
To date, there have been no reports of human transmission of bird flu during the current outbreak. Additionally, most human cases have not been severe, and no deaths have been reported. For these reasons, experts are confident that the bird flu risk to humans remains low.
“In the short term, there is very little threat,” Dr. Scott Roberts, an infectious diseases specialist with Yale Medicine said. “The risk for the general public is so low,” he emphasized to Yale Medicine.
How the U.S. is monitoring bird flu
The CDC continues to monitor the circulation of bird flu in humans as part of its year-round flu monitoring. The agency is also working to improve protections for farm workers, who are at the highest risk of contracting bird flu.
In November 2024, the CDC also announced expanded actions and updated guidance for farm workers, including improved access to and training for using personal protective equipment (such as N95 face masks), more rigorous testing procedures, and increased outreach. These updates followed a CDC report finding that 7 percent of participating dairy workers had signs of a recent bird flu infection. A second CDC study, also released in November, found inadequate use of personal protective equipment among dairy workers on farms with bird flu outbreaks.
After the H5N1 virus was found in raw milk being sold in California, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on December 6 that unpasteurized milk must be tested for bird flu. The USDA order also requires dairy farms with positive bird flu cases to cooperate with health officials in disease surveillance.
Is a bird flu pandemic possible?
In early November, a Canadian teen was hospitalized with bird flu caused by a virus that’s closely related to the H5N1 virus circulating in the U.S. The case has troubled experts for a few reasons.
First, it is Canada’s first human bird flu case where the patient was not infected while traveling, and the source of exposure is unknown. Second, the teen experienced severe symptoms and developed a lung infection requiring critical care, raising concern that bird flu infections may be more severe in younger people.
The final and biggest concern about the case is that genetic analysis revealed several changes in the virus’s DNA sequence, called mutations, that could potentially make the virus better able to infect humans. Researchers say that two of those mutations could make it easier for the virus to infect humans, and another one may make it easier for the virus to replicate after infecting a human. However, it’s unclear if the changes occurred before or after the teen was infected.
Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, told Nature that “this should serve as a warning: this virus has the capacity to switch very quickly into a form that can cause severe disease.”
Notably, even in this more severe case, there is still no evidence of human transmission, which is necessary for a potential bird flu pandemic. However, the case underscores the risk of new and potentially dangerous mutations emerging as the H5N1 virus continues to spread and multiply.
A study published in Science on December 5 found that a genetic change on a protein on the surface of the virus could make it easier for the virus to attach to and infect human cells. But none of the mutations observed in the Canadian case are those identified in the study.
Importantly, the researchers stressed that the ability of the virus to attach to a specific part of human cells “is not the only [factor] required for human-to-human transmission of influenza viruses.”
How to stay safe
Most people are not at high risk of being exposed to bird flu. The virus is spreading between animals and from animals to humans through direct contact. The CDC recommends avoiding the consumption of raw milk products and direct contact with wild birds and potentially infected livestock.
“Pasteurization kills the bird flu virus and other harmful germs that can be found in raw milk,” says a November 24 California Department of Public Health press release. “CDPH advises consumers not to drink raw milk or eat raw milk products due to the risk of foodborne illnesses.”
Additionally, although the annual flu shot does not protect against bird flu, getting vaccinated helps prevent infection with seasonal flu and bird flu at the same time. In very rare instances, getting infected by two influenza viruses at the same time can result in a combination of genetic material that produces a new virus.
This phenomenon, known as antigenic shift, triggered the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
Learn more about how to protect yourself and your loved ones against bird flu.
For more information, talk to your health care provider.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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