Health

New York University medical student Andrea Liu, 26, was found hanging in her dorm room in May with a suicide note near her body, just a few weeks before she was set to graduate. Five days later, another NYU student studying psychiatry was found dead, also reportedly from suicide. Different studies give different numbers on […]

Low-carb diets might be popular now, but they could also be deadly over time, a long-term study shows. Esteemed British medical publication The Lancet Public Health released a study of the diets and health of a group of 15,400 Americans that spans 25 years, which showed that a more balanced diet might decrease one’s risk […]

It’s always been clear that water is essential to life. But science is still discovering new levels to this very deep relationship. By weight, an average adult human can be up to 60 percent water (children up to 75 percent). But if you consider our composition in terms of molecules, we’re practically all water—nearly 99 […]

Chronic illness is at epidemic levels in the United States as well as other wealthy nations. Autoimmune diseases, though tending to receive less attention than headline-grabbing afflictions such as cancer and heart disease, have experienced some of the most rapid increases. Comprising more than 80 different diseases, autoimmune conditions arise when the immune system attacks the body’s […]

When I was very young, five or six, my parents always told me: “Tommy, be good.” But all I wanted to do was run in the woods, play in puddles, eat fast, swim, and have fun. I didn’t have time for manners. Being good seemed always to benefit someone else, not me. Why do I […]

A recent survey shows that shoe wearing among young boys isn’t universal. German children and teenagers spend most of their day in shoes, while about 90 percent of their South African counterparts go barefoot. Aside from the obvious climate differences, it is tempting to think that South Africa’s lower economic ranking, compared with Germany’s, is […]

The White House held its first conference on Aug. 13 for developers who want to help Medicare patients better manage their health data. Through an initiative called MyHealthEData, the Trump administration is working to give patients better access to their health records, by ensuring the records are available digitally and through multiple applications. The initiative […]

You may think that because you’re older, having strong muscles doesn’t matter, but you’re wrong. Researchers at King’s College London have found that muscle fitness is closely related to brain aging. The researchers found that interventions like increasing walking can have a positive effect on the brain. The study looked at 324 healthy female twins […]

When Lucy Howard was pregnant with her second child, she felt like she was walking through fog. “It was a struggle to get up most [days]… I would spend mornings just sitting on the sofa crying. Everything seemed harder,” she said. “I struggled to do daily chores and the house became a mess, which led […]

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the value of muscle stretching to accelerate recovery after exercise. “Stretching clears out your lactic acid,” and other similar claims abound. Is any of this true? Sort of. First, it is important to understand the difference between stretching for recovery and stretching for remodeling. Recovery During […]

The average person probably hasn’t heard of an Accountable Care Organization, or ACO as it’s called in the health care world, but that could change if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) changes how ACOs are governed. ACOs are groups of health care providers, such as hospitals or physicians in private practices, that […]

Amicus Therapeutics on Aug. 13 set an average price of $315,000 per year for its newly approved Fabry disease treatment, a price it believes is below that of the main existing treatment in the United States. Galafold—approved on Aug. 10 by U.S. regulators—is the first new Fabry disease treatment in the country in over 15 […]

The Trump administration says it will work to reverse a court decision blocking a Kentucky Medicaid waiver, that would, among other things, tie work requirements to Medicaid eligibility. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington nullified the waiver in June, saying that the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) didn’t fully consider the ramifications of […]

Anxiety disorders are some of the most common mental health problems today. In fact, 4 out of every 100 people around the world have one, and research my colleagues and I were involved in at the University of Cambridge has shown that women and young people under the age of 39 are most affected. Anxiety […]

Nutritionally speaking, there is no such thing as a superfood. The term was coined for marketing purposes to influence food trends and sell products. The food industry bestows the superfood label on nutrient-rich foods that are good for our health. Though many foods could be described as super, it’s important to understand that there is […]

Barbara was a lupus patient for over 10 years. Due to being constantly sick, fatigued, and pained, she was barely able to work in her 20s, and eventually filed for disability. Suicide occurred to her many times. To deal with the depression, Barbara started seeing a psychologist, but was soon diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis as […]

Lupus, also known as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), is a complex autoimmune disease in which the body attacks itself, resulting in a wide range of often debilitating symptoms. Lupus is characterized by acute and chronic inflammation of various tissues throughout the body. One of the bright spots in the area of treatment is the number of […]

More and more people are either swapping traditional cigarettes for e-cigarettes or simply picking up an e-cigarette habit, causing this trend to grow in popularity. The appeal of e-cigarettes is that people believe them to be healthier than traditional cigarettes, but even e-cigarettes contain nicotine and other chemicals. Furthermore, e-cigarettes come in a wide variety […]

The serious consequences of sleep deprivation perennially capture society’s attention. And, as kids head back to school, sleep and a lack of it are of particular concern. Compared to historical norms, how have our contemporary expectations of sleep changed? What are the effects of inadequate sleep? What can be done to optimize the experience of […]

Alarms go off so frequently in emergency rooms, doctors barely notice. But when a colleague is wheeled in on a gurney, clinging to life, that alarm becomes a deafening wake-up call. For Dr. Kip Wenger, that colleague was a friend, a 33-year-old female physician. Wenger is a regional medical director for TeamHealth, one of the […]