Health insurance companies in the U.S., Canada and Europe hold nearly $1.9 billion in fast-food company stock, according to a new study from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the department of medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance. In the study, published this week in the American Journal of Public Health researchers examined
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Not knowing where your food will come from, where you will live, or if there will be heat in your home day to day or week to week can certainly be stressful for anyone. But, according to new research published this week in the journal Pediatrics, the cumulative effect of these hardships can be detrimental to children’s health. The impact
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Many urologists miss or misdiagnose Chlamydia in young, sexually active patients, according to a letter published online in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. Chlamydia trachomatis infection can lead to a condition known as epididymo-orchitis, in which the testicles and a tube that stores sperm become inflamed. These symptoms
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While applauding the First Lady’s efforts to combat childhood obesity through the Let’s Move initiative, researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco say that the campaign’s efforts focused primarily on behavioral and nutritional intervention—in school or at home—will yield “limited
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A new study published online earlier this week by the British medical journal The Lancet suggests that the number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth has dropped by more than one third in the past three decades, from half a million annual deaths in 1980 to 343,000 as of 2008. The study, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates
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In spite of physical, sexual or psychological abuse, many women in abusive relationships with men continue to view their partners as dependable, and some describe them as having positive traits such as being affectionate, according to a new study conducted by researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and Adelphi University in
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Despite the widely held belief—promoted by the World Health Organization and U.S. public health organizations for two decades—that eating more fruit and veggies can diminish cancer risk, a large scale study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute finds that getting a daily five servings of apples, tomatoes and leafy
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Despite concerns about stigma faced by obese patients—and research suggesting an inverse relationship between physicians’ respect for patients and patients’ weight—a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that obese patients receive the same quality of care as their slimmer peers. A team of
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Antipsychotic drugs, which are often prescribed to treat aggression in patients with dementia, may significantly increase risk for potentially fatal pneumonia in the elderly, according to a new study highlighted by the BBC from researchers at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The study, published in the Annals of
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Between 1999 and 2006 the number of people hospitalized for poisoning from prescription drugs including opioids (such as OxyContin and Vicodin) and tranquilizers and sedatives (depressants such as Valium, Xanax and Ambien) has increased by 65%—representing nearly twice the increase in hospitalizations due to overdose with other
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For cancer patients, sexual dysfunction is often a long-term side effect of treatment, and can have a significant impact on quality of life. To better understand long-term sexual dysfunction in cancer patients, and develop therapies tailored to their needs, researchers from Duke University argue that there is a “need for a flexible,
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Earlier this year, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that included more than 7,000 patients from eight hospitals around the world, found that implementing the use of surgical checklists reduced patient mortality rates by half, and patient injuries by nearly a third. Now, a new study published online in the British
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A four-year study of more than 8,000 men between the ages of 50 to 75 who had an elevated risk for developing prostate cancer found that those who took the drug dutasteride (sold as Avodart) were less likely to develop prostate cancer than those taking a placebo. What’s more, study participants taking dutasteride were significantly less
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