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For years, doctors have known that high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and excessive alcohol increase your risk of dementia. More recently, a growing body of evidence also suggests a link to vision problems, leading to the influential Lancet Commission in 2024 to add untreated vision loss to the list of 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia. The commission, which issues periodic recommendations on public health matters, found that about 45% of dementia cases in the world are potentially preventable by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors — which also include high cholesterol, social isolation and hearing loss — and that 2% of cases can be prevented or delayed by addressing treatable vision loss. (Ho, 7/20)

When Gretchen Dunoyer heard that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was recruiting people with lingering Lyme disease symptoms for a study, she burst into tears. Dunoyer, 63, had near-constant fatigue and vertigo for years, after an odd, flulike illness in the summer of 2002. She bounced around from doctor to doctor looking for answers. Many of them told her that she was depressed, but she had a gut feeling that something else was wrong. Around 2015, she was told the root of her distress was likely Lyme disease, courtesy of a tick bite that she didn’t remember. (Abbott, 7/20)

A new analysis of four randomized clinical trials provides evidence that a stewardship prompt embedded in a hospital's electronic health record to improve empiric antibiotic prescribing in the early days of hospitalization can help reduce unnecessary use of extended-spectrum antibiotics in patients throughout their hospital stay. The findings are from a research letter published yesterday in JAMA by the team of researchers who conducted the INSPIRE (Intelligent Stewardship Prompts to Improve Real-Time Antibiotic Selection) trials. (Dall, 7/18)

Intermittent dosing of daily antiretroviral therapy (ART) showed no difference in efficacy as continuous regular daily dosing in maintaining viral suppression when ART supplies are limited, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis. (Haelle, 7/20)

Whether triggered by pollen, pet dander or peanuts, allergies in this day and age seem nearly impossible to avoid. But one group appears virtually immune, a mystery to experts who study allergies. Despite the increasing rate of allergic diseases, both in industrialized and in developing countries, the Amish remain exceptionally — and bafflingly — resistant. Only 7 percent of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens in a skin prick test, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population. (Kim, 7/20)