Take a stroll through a zoo and, if you're paying attention, you might notice that most animals can be sorted into two groups. There are those animals with eyes on the sides of their heads – chickens, cows, horses, zebras – and then there are those with eyes that are closer together on the front of their face, like monkeys, tigers, owls, wolves. All the humans visiting the zoo are obviously in the latter camp. What's behind this divide?
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States. It affects about 100,000 children and adults in the United States—and millions of people worldwide. New treatments are needed to prevent and treat its serious complications. That’s why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is working with patients and stakeholders, including academics and those from the pharmaceutical industry, to help develop new treatments for SCD.
hen you take prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) medications, do you take also a vitamin, mineral, or other dietary supplements? Have you considered whether there is any danger in mixing medications and dietary supplements?
Google is aiming to diagnose cancers, impending heart attacks or strokes and other diseases, at a much earlier stage than is currently possible.
If you’re allergic to a food ingredient, you probably look for it on the food product’s label. But some labels may not be as reliable as they should be. In fact, allergens not listed on the label, referred to as “undeclared allergens,” are the leading cause of food recalls requested by the Food and Drug Administration.
“This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories,” a concerned commentator once spoke of a new technology. “[People] will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”
Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, was born 100 years ago this week, and the contributions he made to science still save countless lives. That's because the scientific dogma behind his vaccine still holds true: If you expose a body to deactivated, noncontagious version of a virus, when a live bug comes along, that body will be ready.
Editor's note: This story was updated on Oct. 2, 2014, with additional information throughout.
Oct. 1, 2014 -- A man being treated in a Dallas hospital for Ebolareportedly lied on a form that asked if he’d recently had contact with anyone infected before leaving Liberia.
Looking to blast calories? Get ready -- it's going to be a very sweaty session.
"It’s got to be high intensity, whatever the workout is, if you’re going to torch calories -- not just burn them,” says Bret Emery, a nutritional consultant and fitness coach at Emery Fit in Alpharetta, GA. “Heart rate is key. That’s the speedometer of the body. If we speed the body up, it will burn more calories, just as a car will burn more fuel if it speeds up.”
FRIDAY, Aug. 22, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- At least one part of an older person's brain can still process information as well as younger people, according to new research.
THURSDAY, Aug. 21, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is going ahead with tough new controls on painkillers containing hydrocodone, which has been tied to a surge in dangerous addictions across the United States.
Pelvic pain refers to pain in the abdomen below the belly button. This pain can accompany a wide range of conditions. It may be a harmless sign of fertility, a digestive disorder like IBS, or a red flag for a life-threatening emergency. In the slides ahead, we explore 18 causes of pelvic pain. But be sure to see your doctor for proper diagnosis and treatment.
- Electronic cigarettesshould be subject to the same laws that apply totobacco products, and the federal government should ban the marketing and sale of e-cigarettes to young people, a new American Heart Association policy statement says.
The two American Ebola patients who recovered and left the hospital this week are now thought to be immune to the strain of the virus that infected them, experts say. Ebola survivors are generally believed to be immune to future infection with the virus strain that made them sick.
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A new technique for delivering anti-rejection drugs directly to the site of a tissue graft transplant is effective, lasts for months and is safer than drugs that suppress the entire immune system, a new study indicates.
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- It's long been known that eating too much salt will raise your blood pressure, but a comprehensive global study now says that too little salt in your diet also can harm your heart health.
U.S. Committed to Fighting Ebola Outbreak: Obama
The United States is committed to helping contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Barack Obama told the leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone on Thursday.
In his phone call with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, Obama talked about the work being done by the U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team based in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, USA Today reported.
Being overweight and obese puts people at greater risk of developing 10 of the most common cancers, according to research in the Lancet medical journal.
Infusing stem cells into the brain may help boost recovery after a stroke, according to a pilot study by Imperial College London.
A charity says a decision by the NHS in England to reject a drug for men with prostate cancer is a "fiasco".
Using both types of polio vaccine could speed up efforts to free the world of the disease, research suggests.
One of the US aid workers who recovered from an Ebola infection is "thrilled to be alive" as he and another patient are discharged from hospital.
Dr Kent Brantly, 33, thanked supporters for their prayers at a news conference in Atlanta. Nancy Writebol, 59, was discharged on Tuesday.
Up to 30,000 people could have been eligible for drugs in the current Ebola outbreak - if they had been available, a report in Nature suggests.
Experts used data from previous outbreaks to work out how many family members, medics and others would have contact with infected people.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is spreading faster than efforts to control it, World Health Organization (WHO) head Margaret Chan has said.
The Ebola outbreak is stoking fears of a deadly virus spreading across the world through air travel. We talked to experts to discover the risks of catching the disease mid-flight.
Antibiotics are important medicines that have been used to treat
bacterial infections for 70 years.
They work by either disrupting processes bacteria need to survive
or preventing them from reproducing.
When people want to learn more about a new drug warning, they turn to the internet - that’s no surprise. But is the information they find there accurate and up-to-date? Not always, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week.
“Despite debates over its credibility, Wikipedia is reportedly the most frequently consulted online health care resource globally,” the authors write. “Wikipedia pages typically appear among the top few Google search results and are among the references most likely to be checked by internet users.”
Here's a roundup of five medical studies published this week that might give you new insights into your health, mind and body. Remember, correlation is not causation – so if a study finds a connection between two things, it doesn't mean that one causes the other.
Eating more fruits and veggies won’t make you lose weight
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Do you know the difference between teaspoons and tablespoons?
Many parents don’t, according to a study published Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which found more than 10,000 calls to the poison center each year are due to liquid medication dosage errors.
The study says part of the reason parents may be confused is because a range of measurement units – such as teaspoons, tablespoons and milliliters – are often used interchangeably on labels for prescription and over-the-counter medications.