healths

https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article221137300.html

The Coalition for a a Smoke-Free Tomorrow will hold a half-day conference on electronic cigarettes Dec. 10 in Louisville, and offer remote viewing locations in Bowling Green, Hazard and Paducah. The conference, titled "Next Generation Tobacco: The Impact of E-Cigarettes on Kentucky's Future Health," will focus on the recent explosion in the popularity of Juul and other pod e-cigarettes, especially among youth and young adults, and potential policies for preventing associated disease and illness. Speakers will focus on the role of flavors in encouraging underage vaping; the extent to which e-cigarettes and other vaping devices actually help people quit smoking; what's in vaping products; whether they are a safer alternative to combustible cigarettes; and the evidence that e-cigs are a gateway to smoking for youth and young adults. The conference will be held Monday, Dec. 10 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the office of the  Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky , 1640 Ly...

Kentucky has gained more flexibility to provide substance-use-disorder (SUD) services for people on Medicaid as part of the state's new Medicaid plan, most of which was vacated by a judge in June, according to a state news release. Kaiser Family Foundation map shows ranges of opioid addiction among Medicaid beneficiaries before the program was expanded in 2014. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved the "substance use disorder implementation protocol" portion of the plan, called Kentucky HEALTH, for "Helping to Engage and Achieve Long Term Health," on Oct. 5. So far, it is the only part of the state's request for a waiver of the rules to overhaul its Medicaid program that has been approved. �Expanding access to treatment and recovery services for individuals with substance use disorder is critical to our efforts to combat the opioid epidemic in Kentucky,� Health Secretary Adam Meier said in a news release. �We have worked diligently to ide...

As teen use of Juul products continues to soar, the head of the Food and Drug Administration says all options are on the table, including limiting sales of flavored e-cigarette products to stores selling smoking-vapor products. Types of electronic cigarettes In a recent interview with CNBC , FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted that teens tend to purchase e-cigarettes at convenience stores and gas stations, and said restricting their sale to vaping stores is a good idea because they generally do a better job checking identification documents for their ages. Gottlieb estimated that high-school students' reported use of e-cigarettes surged 77 percent last year, and middle schoolers' use grew 50 percent. He said the actual numbers are probably higher because kids don't associate "Juuling" with e-cigarettes. He said next year's National Youth Tobacco Survey will have specific questions about branded products. "These really are reaching epidemic proportion...

Hepatitis A has been blamed for two more deaths, both in Franklin County, bringing to 16 the statewide toll in the outbreak of the contagious liver disease, which has lasted more than a year. None of the deaths have been connected to food-service workers, but concern about transmission by them remains a concern. Officials in Franklin and Fayette counties confirmed the disease in two more food-service workers and urged residents to get vaccinated for hepatitis A. "Since August 2017, more than 2,275 outbreak-associated cases of acute hepatitis A have been reported in 94 of the state�s 120 counties," Chanda Veno reports for The State Journal in Frankfort. Franklin County Health Director Judy Mattingly "couldn�t give the victims� age or sex, but she did explain that both cases fit within the statewide profile of those afflicted by hepatitis A, whose mean age is 37.7 years old," Veno reports. Mattingly told her, �As with all Kentucky cases in this outbreak, it is belie...

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon, Unsplash.com A small-scale study suggests that when young marijuana smokers stop for a month, their memory improves. "The results show that not only does marijuana impair teenagers� and young adults� abilities to take in information, but that this memory muddling may be reversible ," Science News reports. One week into the experiment, those who abstained from pot "performed moderately better on memory tests than they had at the beginning of the study," reports Laura Sanders of Science News. "One particular aspect of memory, the ability to take in and remember lists of words, seemed to drive the overall improvement. . . .  Tricky tasks that required close monitoring of number sequences, and the directions and locations of arrows" did not seem to be affected. "Scientists have struggled to find clear answers about how marijuana affects the developing brain, in part because it�s unethical to ask children to begin using a drug...

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News It's again time to sign up for federally subsidized health insurance through Healthcare.gov . Open enrollment for coverage in 2019 runs through Dec. 15. It's worth taking a look, because most shoppers in the marketplace will qualify for financial help to lower their costs. About 80 percent of Kentuckians enrolled through the federal exchange qualified for tax credits or subsidies that reduced their premiums, according to a Cabinet for Health and Family Services news release . "For most of those who qualify, the credits will offset any premium increases, so the cost of insurance in 2019 will be about the same as this year," says the release. In Kentucky, Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky and CareSource will offer federally subsidized plans on Healthcare.gov, with rate increases of 4.3 percent and 19.4 percent, respectively. Anthem has returned to 34 counties it formerly served, to cover a total of 93. CareSource is covering 61 ...