電腦醫師e-visit

電腦醫師e-visit

Waiting in the doctor's office, reading old magazines is never fun. But some health systems are allowing patients with minor ailments to see the doctor—without seeing the doctor. These patients can log onto their personal health record portal, answer questions about their condition and get their doctor's diagnosis and recommended treatment.  But are e-visits as good as face-to-face consultation? A new study finds that they appear to result in decent diagnoses for common infections, while also saving time and money. The findings are in Archives of Internal Medicine. [Ateev Mehrotra et al., A Comparison of Care at E-Visits and Physician Office Visits for Sinusitis and Urinary Tract Infection]
 Researchers analyzed some 5,000 doctor visits for sinus infections and 3,000 visits for urinary tract infection. Less than 10 percent of all visits were electronic. One possible e-visit drawback: doctors were more likely to prescribe antibiotics after an e-visit than a face-to-face. But patients with an e-visit had just about the same rate of follow up as those who had an office visit. Which suggests that there was not a higher rate of misdiagnosis or treatment failure online. E-visits were also cheaper. —Katherine Harmon
 [The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

 

喝酒影響睡眠Nightcap Drink Disrupts Important Sleep

喝酒影響睡眠

Nightcap Drink Disrupts Important Sleep - Scientific American

A little booze before bedtime might help you fall asleep faster. But various studies show that alcohol is anathema for restorative sleep. A new review paper describes just how detrimental a few drinks can be.

The researchers pored over 20 studies conducted in controlled lab settings. They found a clear trend that just about any amount of alcohol alters sleep. And the effects are usually bigger with more drinks.

Just two drinks or more cut REM sleep, which is important for memory and health. And those deep, slow-wave sleep periods are also reduced for people who have tied on more than one.(tie one on 喝醉，300句俚語p 296)

Perhaps the most potent finding is that just a single dose of alcohol in the late evening can zap the efficacy of your z's. The paper is in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. [Irshaad Ebrahim, et al, Alcohol and Sleep I: Effects on Normal Sleep]

Disrupted and insufficient sleep has been linked to everything from weight gain to heart problems. Not to mention harming memory and wellbeing. It may be time to say goodnight to the nightcap.

—Katherine Harmon

[The above text is a transcript of this podcast]

運動能延長壽命 Exercise Lengthens Life Regardless of Weight

運動能延長壽命 Exercise Lengthens Life Regardless of Weight

A little exercise each week can lead to big gains in life expectancy. And that’s true regardless of your current weight, according to a new review study that included more than 650,000 people.

The World Health Organization recommends two-and-a-half to five hours of brisk walking per week, or less time spent at a more vigorous activity. People who got the full recommended amount of exercise saw an average 3.4-year gain in life expectancy. People who got half as much exercise still lived an average 1.8 years longer. The findings are in the journal PLoS Medicine. [Steven C. Moore et al., Leisure Time Physical Activity of Moderate to Vigorous Intensity and Mortality: A large pooled cohort analysis]

In fact, exercise was a bigger factor than body weight in many cases. People who were normal weight but were inactive actually lived an average of 3.1 fewer years(若是改為years fewer?) than obese people who kept up high levels of activity. 

Finding time to exercise can be tough. Maybe look at it this way. There are almost 9,000 hours in a year. Five hours a week is 260 hours a year—to get an extra 30,000 hours of life. Do the math. While you take a walk.

—Katherine Harmon

http://www.huanqiukexue.com/wap.php?action=article&id=22904

Mosquito Season Means Zika Season, US Experts Warn     microcephaly

"We need a robust response to protect American women and reduce, to the greatest extent humanly possible, the number of families affected. We don't know who those children will be. We don't know where they will grow up, but anything we don't do now, we will regret not having done later," he said.

Frieden and other top doctors say Zika would not be a major threat except that it causes serious birth defects, including microcephaly, which literally means "small head."

"When a child is born with microcephaly, it's not because the skull was malformed, it's because the virus destroyed the brain cells, and the skull collapsed around the demolished brain," Frieden said.

From: http://www.voanews.com/content/mosquito-season-zika-season-congress-funding-us/3361095.html

go viral 是什麼意思?

go viral 是什麼意思?

 viral  [ˋvaɪrəl]  這個字是 "病毒" virus  [ˋvaɪrəs] 這個字的形容詞, 意思就是 "病毒的, 病毒般的"，所以 go viral 字面上的意思是 "像病毒般蔓延"。它指的是某人或物透過社群網站或軟體廣為流傳而造成轟動。比如一個在 Youtube 或臉書上被人大量點閱, 推薦, 轉載/分享而爆紅的影片或人, 物。我們就可以說這個人, 物或影片 went viral。(from: https://www.facebook.com/notes/teacher-sammys-english-teaching-blog/go-viral-%E6%98%AF%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E6%84%8F%E6%80%9D/626787834001841/)

#TryBeatingMeLightly: Fight Against Domestic Violence Goes Viral

When Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology proposed a law allowing men to beat their wives "lightly," photographer Fahhad Rajper responded with a photo project called "#TryBeatingMeLightly." As VOA's Andrew Palczewski reports, the campaign not only went viral on social media, but sparked a global conversation about domestic violence.(from: http://www.voanews.com/)

keep the virus at bay keep at bay 牽制, 不使逼近

keep at bay 牽制, 不使逼近

When a species of nightshade is injured by hungry beetles, it produces sugary nectar at the wound site. The nectar attracts ants that then keep the beetles at bay.

From: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/this-plant-bleeds-nectar-to-attract-help/

Today, HIV-positive patients have access to dozens of powerful medications that can keep the virus at bay. Three classes of drugs have emerged in the last five to 10 years as treatment mainstays: non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), protease inhibitors (PIs) and integrase inhibitors.

With so many potent medications to choose from, clinicians have embarked on several long-term clinical trials to compare the safety, tolerability and effectiveness of available treatments. Recently, many of these large studies have yielded results that have significantly impacted our understanding of the best first-line treatment.

In a symposium at ICAAC/ICC 2015 in San Diego, University Health Network clinician Sharon Walmsley, M.D., offered her insights on "What to Start With for 2015."

From: http://www.thebodypro.com/content/76459/which-hiv-treatment-regimen-to-start-with-in-2015.html

off-putting 形容詞 倒胃口、令人厭惡的

off-putting 形容詞 倒胃口、令人厭惡的

The food they served in the hospital is always off-putting. 
醫院裡提供的食物總是讓人倒胃口。

From: https://zh-tw.facebook.com/englishbell.tw/posts/619295651463908

The alligator is estimated to be 15 feet long. The man who shot this video said the thing was so big, it looked like two guys in an alligator suit.

It didn`t cause any problems, besides maybe abject terror. Good thing no one tried to club it. Its teeth could leave a hole in one attacker.

It doesn`t need to take a shot to take a slice, and its simple presence is off putting.

From:CNN student news http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1606/01/sn.01.html