Diseases & Conditions Archive

What Is It?

A tic is a sudden, rapid, repetitive movement (motor tic) or vocalization (vocal tic).

There are two main types of tics:

• Simple tics involve one muscle group
  • Simple motor tics include head shaking, eye blinking, sniffing, neck jerking, shoulder shrugging and grimacing. These are more common.
  • Simple vocal tics include coughing, throat clearing and barking.
• Complex tics involve more than one muscle group
  • Complex motor tics include self-hitting or self-biting, jumping and hopping, and twirling while walking.
  • Complex vocal tics include repeating words out of context, echoing what someone else said and speaking obscenities.

Tics sometimes change over time from one simple type of tic to another or from a simple to a complex tic. Some tics are slow and sustained rather than brief and rapid. Some involve the lower body.

In the journals

People who quit smoking decades ago are still at risk for lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a study published online Oct. 9, 2019, by The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

Researchers looked at lung capacity — the amount of air in your lungs after taking a deep breath — among more than 25,000 people and analyzed the results based on whether the individuals smoked, had quit smoking, or had never smoked. Previous research has suggested that the decline in lung capacity that occurs with smoking levels off within a few years after people quit.

Ask the doctors

Q. I have a very stressful job, and recently my blood pressure readings started going up. Could my job stress be the reason why?

A. Yes, chronic stress can affect blood pressure. Several hormones affect your heart's rhythm, including epinephrine and norepinephrine. When these hormone levels rise, your heart starts to work harder. Stress hormones can also constrict your blood vessels, causing temporary blood pressure spikes.

Infections aren't the only conditions that can cause discomfort.

Certain urinary symptoms are quite common, particularly in women: painful burning with urination, an urgent need to urinate like you can't hold it (urinary urgency), and urinating frequently (urinary frequency).

These symptoms can be caused by any of the following conditions.

News briefs

A research team from Harvard reports that it has harnessed the powerful gene editing tool called CRISPR to recognize and kill viruses. The findings were published online Oct. 2, 2019, by Molecular Cell. CRISPR can alter strands of both DNA and RNA (a molecule related to DNA), which are built like strings of beads. Each bead consists of one of four chemicals called bases. CRISPR can recognize a specific sequence of bases (such as one that is characteristic of a particular virus), latch on to that sequence and cut it, and change the sequence to a different one. This can scramble the genetic sequence of a virus in such a way that the virus no longer can make copies of itself. The Harvard team used this technique to kill several viruses that are made of RNA — including influenza virus — in a laboratory dish. The next step will be to see if the CRISPR technique can also be used to kill viruses in a living animal. That will be much harder. However, if it works, the technique might someday help humans fight viral infections.

Image: © Bill Oxford/Getty Images

Research we're watching

If you suffer from migraine headaches, there's a new option available to relieve your pain. In October 2019, the FDA approved lasmiditan (Reyvow) to treat migraine pain in adults. Taken as a pill, it works for migraines either with or without an aura (a visual disturbance within the hour before migraine pain starts). Lasmiditan is not designed to prevent migraines. Lasmiditan is the first migraine treatment in a class of drugs known as serotonin (5-HT) 1F receptor agonists. In studies, researchers found that it could relieve pain and other migraine symptoms within two hours.

Migraines affect an estimated 28 million women in the United States, according to the American Migraine Foundation, and the World Health Organization ranks them among the top 10 disabling conditions. Pain and other symptoms, which may include nausea, sensitivity to light and temporary vision changes, result in lost work days, reduced productivity, and diminished quality of life for many people.