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MorningMed is the best way to keep up with the world of health and medicine through curated round-ups, useful insights and other practical resources.

What you need to know

Upon the expiration of the nation’s public health emergency on May 11th, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop tracking community levels for Covid-19. Instead, the CDC will keep tabs on Covid-19 largely by tracking hospitalizations in some areas, according to a source familiar with the agency’s plans.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still requiring international visitors boarding flights to the United States to be vaccinated against Covid-19, but it’s easing vaccine requirements for those travelers. The updated travel guidance aligns with the simplified vaccine guidance for Americans, meaning that those who are unvaccinated are now considered fully vaccinated after a single dose of a bivalent vaccine, which protects against more strains of the virus than the original shot.
United States health officials have approved the first pill for fecal transplants, which is derived from healthy bacteria from human waste. This alternative is a simpler treatment plan compared to the network of stool banks at medical institutions and hospitals that are currently relied on.
A new study sheds light on prescription practices leading to many American adults being prescribed amphetamines, which have a risk of misuse, alongside medications for depression and anxiety. This combination could lead to a potential hike in both rates of misuse and addiction, alongside unknown side effects.
Following an estimated 619,000 malaria linked deaths in 2021, a promising new malaria vaccine has been approved in two countries with more expected to follow. Ghana and Nigeria both initially approved this new vaccine, which was developed by researchers at Oxford University, and ten other African countries are currently reviewing trial data to approve the shot, according to the WHO.

Opinion

While immune to burnout, ChatGPT may demonstrate better bedside manner than some doctors, but medical mastery is lacking.
ChatGPT has already proven to be a valuable supplement for patients seeking medical information and guidance, but it does not match the value and insight of a human physician. Don’t take it from me, though. ChatGPT says so itself: “While I am a language model that has been trained on a vast amount of information, I am not a licensed medical professional and I am not capable of providing medical diagnoses, treatments, or advice,” the chatbot wrote in response to a question from CNN. Recently published AI research suggests that physicians can learn from ChatGPT in areas surrounding patient communication and bedside manner, however.
  • ChatGPT was evaluated against a panel of licensed health care professionals who were each exposed to nearly 200 different medical questions posed to a public online forum, which included patient inquiries about medical diagnoses, need for medical attention. On average, ChatGPT scored 21% higher than physicians for the quality of responses and 41% more empathetic, according to the study.

  • More recently, a comparison was made of postoperative care instructions for eight common pediatric procedures that were provided by ChatGPT, Google and Stanford University. Stanford University scored higher in categories across the board, however ChatGPT and Google were about even in terms of understandability, both scoring better than 80%. And while ChatGPT scored well in actionability (73%), Google responses were rated higher (83%).

  • ChatGPT is better viewed as a support for doctors than as a guide for patients. It’s best used “one step removed from the clinical encounter,” in situations that are low risk to the patient, according to Dr. David Asch.
Dr. David Asch, a professor of medicine and senior vice dean at the University of Pennsylvania, states: “I think we worry about the garbage in, garbage out problem. And because I don’t really know what’s under the hood with ChatGPT, I worry about the amplification of misinformation. I worry about that with any kind of search engine,” he said. “A particular challenge with ChatGPT is it really communicates very effectively. It has this kind of measured tone, and it communicates in a way that instills confidence. And I’m not sure that that confidence is warranted.”

Enter evalytics labs

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing healthcare delivery in ways that were once thought impossible. From improving patient outcomes to reducing healthcare costs, AI is becoming an integral part of healthcare delivery. In this blog post, we will delve deeper into the topic, based on recent news articles.
Visit our NPI Lookup Tool to easily search for physician, other medical practitioner and organization NPI numbers and access to Extended Provider Datasets. This tool combines data from the NPPES NPI Registry, along with other credible sources.

What to Watch For

Mediterranean diet may protect against diabetes more than realized, study finds.
The Mediterranean diet — which is filled with whole grains, fish, fruits and olive oil — already protects the brain from aging and may significantly lower risk of heart disease, but a new study shows a much stronger link with a reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Key takeaways
  • British scientists developed a biomarker scoring system from blood sample collections, composed of a host of biomarkers of fatty acids and carotenoids. 128 adults aged 65 and older were randomized to consume the Mediterranean diet or continue a regular diet for six months.

  • Additionally, scientists from the University of Cambridge analyzed data from both blood sample and self-reported diet information from over 340,000 research volunteers across a decade.

  • Results found a nearly 30% reduction in diabetes risk using the biomarker data, compared to 10% reduction from the self-reported data. The findings strengthen the case for recommending the Mediterranean diet for the prevention of Type 2 diabetes. The 20% of participants with the highest values of the biomarker score had a 62% lower risk of new-onset type 2 diabetes relative to the 20% with the lowest biomarker score values
By the digits
  • 30% reduction in type 2 diabetes risk in people who ate a diet rich in whole grains, fish, vegetables and olive oil.

  • For someone consuming an average of 2,000 calories per day, researchers defined it as, at least:

  • 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

  • Five servings of vegetables (75 g each).

  • Two to three servings of fruits (150 g each).

  • Five servings of cereal products (between 30-120 g each depending on the specific product).

Challenge Yourself

Is There a Doctor in the House?
Take our weekly quiz and see how you stack up against your peers
A 30-year-old woman, who has been a patient in the practice for several years, comes to the office to ask for advice. Her husband has a family history of retinitis pigmentosa and she wants to know the probability of her 4-year-old son developing the disease. A family pedigree is shown.

Which of the following is the most appropriate statement to the patient?

A  A geneticist should be consulted to answer her question
B  Her son must be tested to determine if he is affected
C  Her son will not be affected
D  There is a 100% chance that her son will be affected


SURPRISING DISCOVERIES

Eli Lilly reports that obese people with Type 2 diabetes lose 15% of their body weight, or approximately 34 pounds, on average by utilizing their drug tirzepatide in a late-stage clinical trial. These encouraging results, highlighted by the difficulty of weight loss for diabetics, strengthens the evidence of the drug under investigation being an effective weight loss aid.
Cigarette smoking rates have fallen to a historic low in the United States, but e-cigarette rates continue to climb and replace the smoke cloud shaped void. According to findings by the CDC, about 11% of adults admitted to currently using cigarettes, while about 6% of adults use e-cigarettes, with even more disturbing numbers from high school and middle school students.
Researchers at the Southern Nevada Health District reported 18 cases of pediatric brain abscesses — pus-filled pockets in the brain — in Clark County in 2022, which is nearly quadruple the annual average between 2015 and 2021. This unexplained rise in life-threatening brain infections in children has concerned pediatricians.
A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder found that Black and Latina mothers in the US may have been induced into labor based on the needs of White pregnant women and not their own. The study, published in the American Sociological Association’s Journal of Health and Social Behavior, suggests that obstetric care in the United States has been corrupted by systemic racism after an analysis of more than 40 million birth records.


Thank you for reading! More next week,
My best wishes for a productive and idea-filled week ahead. Thanks for your ongoing efforts to improve the lives of the patients we all serve. Please send any news, comments, suggestions and ideas to hello@morningmed.email.
Quiz answer: The correct answer is C) "Her son will not be affected"

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