Closing the societal gender gap is a noble goal, but there is at least one area where women shouldn’t be striving to outdo men: drunk driving. While, in keeping with historic trends, overall men are still more likely to get into deadly alcohol-related accidents than women, a new study published in the journal Injury Prevention [...]
Correction appended.* People who regularly take ibuprofen (Advil) may have a lower risk for developing Parkinson’s disease, according to new research that will be presented in April at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Toronto. In a six-year study of more than 130,000 people, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health [...]
Vaccines have dramatically impacted global health: by 1979, international vaccination campaigns had successfully led to the eradication of smallpox, which was once estimated to kill as many as 30% of people infected. And since the launch of the World Health Organization’s polio eradication campaign in 1988, widespread vaccination has contributed to a 99% worldwide reduction [...]
Wearing a condom that doesn’t fit correctly—is too big, for example—may increase the chances of the condom breaking, slipping or coming off or being taken off during intercourse, increasing the risk for sexually transmitted infections, according to a study from researchers at the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky. The research, which [...]
In the last three decades, chronic health problems including obesity, asthma and behavioral and learning problems have been steadily increasing among children. To get a hold of the magnitude of the problem, researchers from MassGeneral Hospital for Children analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Cohort, gathered between 1988 and 2006. In their [...]
Oxytocin, a hormone often referred to as the “cuddle chemical” for its role in helping to foster intimate relationships—particularly between mothers and their newborns—may help people with autism to read and react to social cues, according to the preliminary results of a small study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Individuals [...]
Medical TV shows may often be overly melodramatic, but many of the health emergencies they depict do happen in real life. (That is, perhaps, with a notable exception of preventing a bomb from exploding inside a patient’s abdomen, eh hem, Grey’s Anatomy.) And, as a result, when it comes to learning the basics about how [...]
There are all sorts of products out on the market made to wean smokers off a dangerous habit—the patch, the lozenge, and the gum, for example. Yet, what about the e-cigarette?
Holding on to the belief that children will shed their “baby fat” as they get older may be perpetuating the childhood obesity epidemic, and laying a foundation for obesity later in life among overweight tots. According to 2006 data from the Centers for Disease Control, 16% of American children were obese, and 32% overweight, with [...]
While some of the staples of eating healthy are pretty easy to remember—eating balanced meals that include veggies, protein and starch, and eating lots of fiber, not too much sugar and not too much fat—sometimes keeping track of all of the little ways that diet can influence our health can be a challenge. Yet, if [...]
