Health Highlights: July 21, 2016

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

Zika Concerns Lead Top Tennis Players to Skip Rio Olympics

Some top tennis players are still trying to decide whether to attend the Rio Olympics, which begin in two-and-a-half weeks.

In the last five days, four top players have said they will skip the games over concerns about the Zika virus, The New York Times reported.

The four players include two men, seventh-ranked Milos Raonic and eighth-ranked Tomas Berdych, and two women, fifth-ranked Simona Halep and 17th-ranked Karolina Pliskova.

“I concluded that the risks are too high for my career and for my health, especially as a woman,” Halep said in a statement on Facebook, The Times reported. “Family is much too important for me and I can’t risk not being able to have one of my own after my career in tennis is over.”

Berdych said that he could not justify the risks of playing in Rio.

“I’m going to play two, three, four years, and then the rest of my life will be another 60 years, something like that,” he said, The Times reported. “If something happens that makes that not the way you want it, because of one week or one tournament, you might have a sad life. No, I don’t think so; I don’t want to take that risk, even if the risks are possibly small or whatever.”

Some other tennis players, including Rafael Nadal and Canadian Eugenie Bouchard are still trying to decide, while others, including Americans Denis Kudla and Sloane Stephens, say will compete at the Rio Olympics.

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Kris Kristofferson Improving After Lyme Disease Misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s

Kris Kristofferson’s health is improving after he was misdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and later correctly diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease, his close friends say.

“[Kris is] in great spirits,” Bucky Kahler, who has been best friends with 80-year-old Kristofferson since middle school, told Closer Weekly. “He’s getting better and better,” Kahler said.

“It’s like Lazarus coming out of the grave and being born again,” singer-songwriter Chris Gantry said.

“For the past six or seven years, there was this slow realization that he was becoming forgetful. It was apparent,” Gantry said. “Kris alluded to it because he knew something was up. We all thought it was Alzheimer’s or dementia from old age.”

The treatments for Lyme disease have changed his life, another longtime friend told Closer.

“Kris is as sharp as he’s been in the past 20 years because of his treatments,” the friend said. “His wife, Lisa, and his eight children see a different Kris now. It really is a modern-day medical miracle.”

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