Publications by authors named "Lara Bull-Otterson"

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM); however, evidence is limited by sample sizes and lack of control groups.

Methods: To assess the GDM risk after COVID-19 in pregnancy, we constructed a retrospective cohort of pregnancies ending March 2020-October 2022 using medical claims. People with COVID-19 diagnosis claims from conception to 21 gestational weeks (n = 57 675) were matched 1:2 to those without COVID-19 during pregnancy (n = 115 350) by age range, pregnancy start month, and encounter year-month.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the prevalence of post-COVID conditions among adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 using a primary care registry in the U.S.
  • Researchers compared COVID-19 patients to historical controls with influenza-like illness and contemporaneous wellness patients, finding higher rates of breathing difficulties, type 2 diabetes, fatigue, and sleep disturbances in the COVID-19 group.
  • The results suggest that while there is a moderate burden of post-COVID conditions in primary care, these conditions are not as prevalent as reported in specialized or hospital settings.
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The risk for COVID-19-associated mortality increases with age, disability, and underlying medical conditions (1). Early in the emergence of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients was lower than that during previous pandemic peaks (2-5), and some health authorities reported that a substantial proportion of COVID-19 hospitalizations were not primarily for COVID-19-related illness,* which might account for the lower mortality among hospitalized patients. Using a large hospital administrative database, CDC assessed in-hospital mortality risk overall and by demographic and clinical characteristics during the Delta (July-October 2021), early Omicron (January-March 2022), and later Omicron (April-June 2022) variant periods among patients hospitalized primarily for COVID-19.

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Post-COVID-19 (post-COVID) symptoms and conditions* are new, recurring, or ongoing health problems that occur 4 or more weeks after infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Previous studies have characterized and estimated the incidence of post-COVID conditions among adults (1,2), but data among children and adolescents are limited (3-8). Using a large medical claims database, CDC assessed nine potential post-COVID signs and symptoms (symptoms) and 15 potential post-COVID conditions among 781,419 U.

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Article Synopsis
  • - This study analyzed antibody concentrations in 3,067 COVID-19-unvaccinated individuals with detectable anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, revealing significantly lower neutralizing and binding antibody levels compared to those seen after vaccination.
  • - Approximately 88% of participants had neutralizing antibody levels associated with 70% vaccine efficacy against symptomatic infection, but only about 30% had levels indicative of 90% vaccine efficacy; binding antibody levels were even lower.
  • - The findings underline the importance of vaccination for enhanced protection and recommend using standardized assays to measure antibody levels, which can inform public health decisions regarding booster doses, especially as new variants emerge.
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In November 2021, CDC was notified of a cluster of previously healthy children with hepatitis of unknown etiology evaluated at a single U.S. hospital (1).

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Approximately 27% of adults in the United States live with a disability,* some of whom qualify for Medicare benefits. Persons with disabilities are at increased risk for severe COVID-19-associated outcomes compared with the general population (1); however, existing studies have limited generalizability or only pertain to a specific disability (e.g.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected people with diabetes, who are at increased risk of severe COVID-19.* Increases in the number of type 1 diabetes diagnoses (1,2) and increased frequency and severity of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) at the time of diabetes diagnosis (3) have been reported in European pediatric populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In adults, diabetes might be a long-term consequence of SARS-CoV-2 infection (4-7).

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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare services, reducing opportunities to conduct routine hepatitis C virus antibody screening, clinical care, and treatment. Therefore, people living with undiagnosed hepatitis C virus during the pandemic may later become identified at more advanced stages of the disease, leading to higher morbidity and mortality rates. Further, unidentified hepatitis C virus-infected individuals may continue to unknowingly transmit the virus to others.

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Background: As a result of the continuing surge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many patients have delayed or missed routine screening and preventive services. Medical conditions, such as coronary heart disease, mental health issues, and substance use disorder, may be identified later, leading to increases in patient morbidity and mortality.

Methods: National Emergency Medical Services Information System data were used to assess 911 emergency medical services (EMS) activations during 2018-2020.

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Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, primarily used to treat autoimmune diseases and to prevent and treat malaria, received national attention in early March 2020, as potential treatment and prophylaxis for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (1). On March 20, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate in the Strategic National Stockpile to be used by licensed health care providers to treat patients hospitalized with COVID-19 when the providers determine the potential benefit outweighs the potential risk to the patient.* Following reports of cardiac and other adverse events in patients receiving hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 (2), on April 24, 2020, FDA issued a caution against its use and on June 15, rescinded its EUA for hydroxychloroquine from the Strategic National Stockpile.

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Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is an important public health problem among people with HIV. People with HIV who are coinfected with HCV infection are at increased risk for cirrhosis, liver failure, and hepatitis C-related mortality; as such, national guidelines recommend that persons with HIV be tested for HCV infection.

Methods: Data from the 2003-2017 IBM Watson Health MarketScan database were used for this study.

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Background: We assessed prevalence of testing for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among persons who inject drugs (PWID).

Methods: Using a nationwide health insurance database for claims paid during 2010-2017, we identified PWID by using codes from the International Classification of Diseases, Current Procedural Terminology, and National Drug Codes directory. We then estimated the percentage of PWIDs tested for HIV or HCV within 1 year of an index encounter, and we used multivariate logistic regression models to assess demographic and clinical factors associated with testing.

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Enteric dysbiosis plays an essential role in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Detailed characterization of the alterations in the gut microbiome is needed for understanding their pathogenic role in ALD and developing effective therapeutic approaches using probiotic supplementation. Mice were fed liquid Lieber-DeCarli diet without or with alcohol (5% v/v) for 6 weeks.

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Accurately determining the distribution of rare variants is an important goal of human genetics, but resequencing of a sample large enough for this purpose has been unfeasible until now. Here, we applied Sanger sequencing of genomic PCR amplicons to resequence the diabetes-associated genes KCNJ11 and HHEX in 13,715 people (10,422 European Americans and 3,293 African Americans) and validated amplicons potentially harbouring rare variants using 454 pyrosequencing. We observed far more variation (expected variant-site count ∼578) than would have been predicted on the basis of earlier surveys, which could only capture the distribution of common variants.

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