Infectious Disease

Concurrent COVID Causes Major Rise in MI Mortality

By Janet Gulland, Staff Writer

Concurrent COVID-19 at the time of an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), raises one-year mortality by 25%, according to new, late-breaking data just presented at the 2026 joint meeting of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) & Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology/Association Canadienne de Cardiologie d’Intervention (CAIC-ACCI) in Montreal. Analysis of outcomes from 2,358 […]

New Lyme Diagnostics on Near Horizon

By Erik Goldman

Diagnostic tests for Lyme disease may soon get a major upgrade, as seven innovative research and development teams ready their novel methods for review by the Food & Drug Administration. If the FDA deems them market-ready, these new tests could dramatically improve physicians’ abilities to detect early-stage, as well as latent and chronic Borrelia burgdorferi […]

What Anti-Vaccine Policies Could Mean for Autoimmune Diseases

By Giamila Fantuzzi, PhD

Autoimmune diseases disproportionately affect women. This is especially true for lupus (formally known as systemic lupus erythematosus), as about nine in 10 people with the condition are female. Lupus can cause inflammation and pain and commonly affects the skin, joints, and organs including the heart and kidneys. Scientists have long observed an association between infection […]

This Time, Five Years Ago…

By Erik Goldman

It was right about this time, five years ago. I woke up one morning with a raunchy cough, a head full of mucus, and an aching body that felt like a sack of potatoes. “This is weird,” I thought. I seldom get sick, and when I do it’s usually in the November-to-December transition when temperatures […]

Interview: What Biden’s Covid Czar Learned From the Pandemic

By By Sara Talpos, Originally published Nov 2024 on Undark

Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, served as the White House Covid-19 response coordinator from March 2022 to June 2023. On Monday, after delivering the keynote for an infectious disease symposium at the University of Michigan, Jha sat down with Undark to discuss what the country got wrong, and what […]

Covid Virus Can Cause Retinal Damage

By Janet Gulland, Contributing Writer

Add retinal damage to the long and growing list of potential sequelae of Covid-19. Researchers at the University of Missouri have shown that the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for triggering the ‘classic’ respiratory and immunologic symptoms of Covid can also pass the blood-retinal barrier, causing retinal damage and visual impairment. Like the blood-brain barrier, the blood-retina […]

Viroid Obelisks: The Microbiome’s Microbiome?

By Erik Goldman

Just when you thought the microbiome couldn’t get any weirder, investigators at Stanford University have discovered a whole new dimension in the microbial universe: a category of distinct, self-replicating RNA sequences in and among bacteria of the human gut and oral microbiomes. Named “Obelisks” owing to their circular rod-like structures, these peculiar bits of genetic […]

The Five Drivers of Long COVID

By Erik Goldman

Since the Spring of 2020, roughly 200 million Americans have had Covid-19. That’s an estimated 60% of the country’s population. Worldwide, the number is around 700 million. For many, the acute infection was just the beginning of a long, bewildering odyssey of illness. With Covid-related admissions to US hospitals now under 1 case per 100,000 […]

The Post-Viral Recovery Program Supplement Protocols

By Erik Goldman

The Long Covid nutritional protocol developed by the 10-member practitioner working group under the aegis of OvationLab and ANDHealth, is divided into two parts—Foundational Supplements aimed at improving overall health, and Specialty Supplements focused on the five main drivers of Long Covid: ACE2-mediated tissue damage; viral persistence; chronic inflammation; mitochondrial dysfunction; and microbiome/dysbiosis. The working […]

Olive Leaf Extract Reduces Acute Covid Symptoms

By Janet Gulland, Contributing Writer

Supplementation with olive leaf extract, at 250 mg or 500 mg twice daily for five days, in addition to conventional care, significantly reduced body temperature, pulse rate, respiratory rate, and c-reactive protein levels in a placebo-controlled study of 150 patients hospitalized with acute Covid-19. Compared with the placebo, the olive leaf extract also increased oxygen […]