Dana AlKhiyami, a student at Northwestern University in Qatar, has been experiencing a lot of discomfort during lockdown due to the online learning environment and the sudden increase in focused screen time.

“I feel like my eyesight has gotten worse, with my left eye especially hurting more than usual and I have more migraines.” Said Alkhiyami.

A recent study on the Impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on ocular health, where 407 participants aged 19 and above took part in an online survey. The data showed that 65.68 percent of participants under the ages of 26 suffered from sleep pattern disturbances because of digital devices, and 66.9 percent of the students who took part had difficulties with sleeping on time.

The researchers measured 16 symptoms, three of which Alkhiyami is experiencing, and the number of times it occurs. They are all due to the decreased and incomplete blink rate, which negatively affects how the tear film is distributed hence stopping the meibomian glands from coating the eye with the oil it discrete to stop the tears from evaporating, so instead the tears would evaporate causing the eyes to dry out. Therefore, fully blinking is one of the most important preventative methods to limit the impact of digital eye strain.

There are also other minor environmental factors to look out for which contribute to drying the eyes, which are improper lighting, glare, and decreased humidity in airconditioned rooms.

Sherine Krause, chief executive at Fight for Sight, a charity organization that funds research into the prevention and treatment of eye disease and blindness, said in an article posted on their website,” We would urge employers to take their responsibilities towards staff seriously during this period of extended home working and to encourage employees to take regular breaks from screens.”

“Supplements are not medicine for any chronic diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.” Said Sima Hamadeh, and associate professor in public health nutrition science and dietetics.

In a study released in 2020, researchers gathered information from questionnaires on the usage of supplements amongst college students living in Qatar. They found out that 42.2 percent of the 400 students believed that supplements were more effective than medicine, and a sum of them even preferred to use supplements in treating cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

The research that was carried out and funded by Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and College of North Atlantic Qatar, resulted from reports of the increased usage of supplements by the general public in the Gulf and specifically diabetes patients.

Image 1: pie chart on the proportion of mortality in Qatar released by The World Heal organization

Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer account for almost half the deaths in Qatar, so being misinformed on the proper methods of treatment will just increase the unwillingness of choosing the right medication that is scientifically proven to work, hence increasing the mortality rates.

“After I got Covid I couldn’t go on with my life normally, foods that I loved started to taste and smell disgusting, and sometimes there are some random horrible smells that just hit me and I get really frustrated because of it.” Said Aisha Al-Abdulla, librarian at Qatar National Library (QNL).

What Al-Abdulla is referring to is called parosmia, which is a condition where some or all scents are distorted into an unpleasant odor. According to a recent study of two Covid patients who started off with anosmia which is the total loss of smell while they still had the virus, but after 72 and 87 days the patients noticed that their sense of smell was distorted and described what they were smelling as “burnt rubber” or “onion”.

The distortion is caused by the olfactory nerve, the main nerve connected to the sense of smell, which sends messages to the brain through their nerve fibers, not sending the right message because of the infection and swelling that Covid has caused, that is why it’s called post-infectious olfactory loss.

“I feel like I am never going to get better,” said Al-Abdulla.

Parosmia is causing a lot of frustration, and uncertainty of their heath with people including Al-Abdulla, and from other patients in research on delayed parosmia, and it has resulted in mental health issues including depression and a general disconnection from the world around them.

Treatments used at the moment are steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs, and olfactory nerve training, which are not proven to cure parosmia. Therefore, there is an increasing demand in research on this issue, along with other long-term effects of covid 19, as it is causing frustration and uncertainty with patients, since they are continuously being misdiagnosed.

“I found that the friction from the disposable masks caused a lot of bumps under my skin, which later developed into breakouts.” Said Fatima Al-Mohannadi, a communications student at Northwestern University in Qatar.

A recent study from Thailand on the effects of certain masks on one’s skin came out to handle and prevent the increased number of adverse skin reactions to it. They found out that of the 454 participants 54.5 percent had an adverse reaction to wearing masks, 39.9 percent of participants got acne, 18.4 had rashes, and 15.6 had itching symptoms.

Figure 1: pie chart showing all the adverse reactions caused by masks.

The researchers offered some advice to combat this issue, which included taking continuous breaks like 15 minutes for every two hours of wearing a mask, never reuse disposable masks, but if their reusable to wash them daily, and swap surgical masks to cloth masks.

One of the study’s limitations is that it occurred in a warm climate which cannot be applicable to everyone around the world, however, that just increases its reliability when it comes to applying it to Qatar, as Qatar has similar warm weather, so the study’s results and advice can be applicable to people in Qatar.

Dr. Sanaa Elsayed Attia, a dermatologist at Dr. Fahad Abdulla medical center, explained how these adverse reactions are caused by the occlusion, which is the covering up, of the face by a mask that could contain a mixture of components like dirt, oil, bacteria or makeup. That build-up with the addition of heat from the weather in Qatar affects how the pilosebaceous gland regulates sebum onto the skin, which can cause clogged pores under the skin that lead to acne, deep white or blackheads, more red inflamed acne bumps, or irritation with redness and itching sensation.

“I have noticed this a lot recently especially with people who use the black disposable masks, the material can cause irritation, and the color attracts and traps heat more between the mask and the face, which again leads to a reaction.” Said Attia

Attia advises not to use dark-colored masks, as well as cleansing the face twice with a gentle cleanser and just lightening up the product load from your face to a light moisturizer and sunscreen.

Furthermore, there needs to be better research understanding and knowledge from the consumers’ side on the type of mask everyone is placing over their faces, as well as understanding your skins needs to deal with this to stay safe and to keep everyone around you safe.

To decrease the demand for surgical and N95 masks which should be reserved for health care workers (HCW) researchers from Khon Kaen University advised the general public to substitute surgical and N95 masks to cloth masks, as it also showed to have the least amount of adverse skin reactions, which were still very evident.

The researchers looked at the skin-related side effects of four types of masks Surgical, N95, cloth, and surgical masks covered with cloth, whereby surgical masks caused the most harm with the most cases of acne, rashes, and itchiness.

However, N95 masks are harsher on the skin, but only the level of its efficiency was mentioned. Whereas, in another research from ClinMed international library they found out that N95 masks cause all the side effects from surgical masks with the addition of skin breakdown causing pressure ulcers, due to prolonged pressure.

At the same time, doctors and HCW, in general, would need these more efficient safety tools like N95 and surgical masks, since their jobs put them in a very vulnerable spot, and to overcome this difficult time need them to stay healthy, so they keep us healthy.

Whereas most of the general public has a choice of quarantining and socially distancing themselves 6 meters away from people in public, so they wouldn’t need to cover their faces with harsh materials which cause adverse skin reactions, but HCW need to, so they should be prioritized. Therefore, when choosing which mask to buy all these factors should be part of the decision making.

A Nobel Prize-winning scientific breakthrough has come out on genome editing, getting us closer to science fictional realities. Through the observation of how Cas9 a protein in bacteria cells is used to kill viruses, researchers have re-engineered it as a functional gene-editing tool calling it CRISPR-Cas9, which can be used to re-write deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in all types of cells including human cells.

Sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, huntingtin’s disease, down syndrome, and hemochromatosis will be just a couple of the genetic disorders that Emmanuelle Charpentier, director of Max Planck unit for the science of pathogens, and Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California Berkley will be eliminating through their scissor technology. The technology has the ability to recognize a specific DNA sequence, locate it in the genome and snip it off.

However, with every scientific breakthrough, there is a downside equal or sometimes even more severe to its advantages. In this case, it can be seeking genetic perfection, which might bring up a new form of social eugenics whereby societies become homogenous and diminish diversity.

Therefore, it is vital that everyone should use this technology wisely so that we do not end up in a Gattacan robotic reality. Doudna also emphasizes this in her interview with Berkley News, “I encourage continued support of fundamental science as well as public discourse about the ethical uses and responsible regulation of CRISPR technology.”

Sweden’s medical community might be facing an issue with their socioeconomic diversity, as one in five physicians in Sweden had a parent who also had a medical degree.

Recently, research has come out on physicians who had a parent that was also educated in the same field have tripled between the years 1950-1990. So, there is a rise in doctors from the same limited socioeconomic pool.

According to Maria Polyakova, an assistant professor, and her colleagues, having doctors that share the same socioeconomic background and personal characteristics benefits the patients’ health, as they are more likely to bring up more issues and seek advice from someone they can relate to. Therefore, if Sweden continues producing physicians from the same limited socioeconomic pool, they will not be able to have efficient doctor-patient relationships, thus harming their population.

In America, Bernard Lentz and David Laband have been also researching the issue of “Why So Many Children of Doctors Become Doctors” and they found out that there is obvious favoritism towards children of physicians when it comes to medical school admissions. They explain the existence of favoritism through nepotism from the American Medical Association (AMA) and “intergenerational transfers of human capital” that is passed on from their parents’ experiential knowledge.

There is yet no exact reason for why this occupational heritability is happening within the medical community in Sweden, as there is no similar pattern with other high paying professions like law. However, the research from the US on the transfer of knowledge might be a good starting point.

Sources:

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4453

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20181446

https://www-jstor-org.turing.library.northwestern.edu/stable/145820?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Why+So+Many+Children+of+Doctors+Become+Doctors&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DWhy%2BSo%2BMany%2BChildren%2Bof%2BDoctors%2BBecome%2BDoctors%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff%26group%3Dnone%26refreqid%3Dsearch%253Abe40721afc074ef882aa82d584c559ea&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_solr_cloud%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Aae94c09e43f4f0585685292c089ff828&seq=7#metadata_info_tab_contents

New research has come out on the effects of toxic stress from war trauma in the Middle East on children. After seeing the research and analysis on the long-term effects of the Kuwait invasion on kids, specialists are warning and seeking immediate intervention for the mental health of children in conflict zones around the Middle East.

Muthanna Samra, professor of psychology, and her colleagues found that the untreated trauma from the invasion had impacts on young Kuwaitis physical and mental health, as well as educational and occupational outcomes. Whereby it is affecting their choice of pursuing further education, causing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), poor sleep quality, an increase in body mass index (BMI), and poor overall health in their adulthood because of their childhood trauma.

However, it is not just the trauma that children face at a young age that will affect their adulthood and society as a whole, but the mental health of individuals surrounding them. Parents teachers and medical care workers in these conflicts are faced with trauma almost every day. Therefore, specialists advise to start the healing process through them, as treating the children on their own won’t be enough if they are still stuck in toxic relationships.

Other hurdles to treating toxic stress in these conflict areas is the lack sufficient resources, funds, and workforce. More specifically, the mental health workforce in conflict zones is far less compared to high income countries ranging between half the amount or none at all in the case of Libya. Another issue in the way is the stigma around mental health, which is stopping people from getting help.

Specialists focusing on the issue have created a detailed plan to reach the first levels of treatment for children to give them a fair chance at adulthood. That plan includes raising awareness on mental health to remove the stigma, and raising funds to support mental health workers.