There’s no question that quitting smoking benefits your health, not least by reducing your risk of developing lung cancer. But what if you’re a smoker who has already been diagnosed with lung cancer — will quitting give you any advantage in fighting the disease?
Medicine
Trial run: testing the barefoot running trend
I don’t particularly enjoy running. On the other hand, I don’t particularly enjoy being overweight and out of shape either, so I do it — usually about three times a week, depending on my work schedule and willpower. But over the years I’ve developed chronic soreness in my knees and lower back, which I attribute at least in …
Can blueberry juice boost your memory?
It’s hard to find fresh blueberries this time of year, but you might consider buying blueberry juice, particularly if you’re having chronic trouble remembering where you put the car keys. According to a small new study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, drinking blueberry juice can actually improve your …
Measuring medicine? Drop the teaspoon
Mary Poppins may have been good at getting kids to clean up the nursery, laugh themselves airborne and even sweep out chimneys, but her method for doling out medicine was unreliable at best, whether or not she threw in the spoonful of sugar. (“Rrrum punch, quite satisfactory.”) Pouring out liquid medications into household spoons may
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Moldy-smelling Tylenol recalled
Johnson & Johnson, the company that manufacturers Tylenol, issued a voluntary recall of several batches of Tylenol, Motrin and Rolaids products in light of reports that the pills were giving off “an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor,” and had been linked to bouts of diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain in a small number of
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Should weight factor into antibiotic dosage?
Most antibiotics and antimicrobial medications are prescribed to adults based on broad dosage recommendations that do not take individual body mass into account, a system that is outdated, according to an editorial published in the current issue of the British medical journal The Lancet. Whereas children’s antibiotic dosing is generally
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Morphine may reduce PTSD risk after traumatic injury
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a growing problem in the U.S., driven largely by the prevalence of the condition among soldiers and other military personnel returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan. PTSD, which is characterized by feelings of numbness, depression, guilt, vivid nightmares and disrupted sleep, among other
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With chronic sleep loss, you can’t always catch up
While occasional loss of sleep—pulling an all-nighter to wrap up a big project, for example—can generally be made up for by getting more hours of sleep in the following days, people who regularly skimp on sleep may not be able to undo the detrimental effects with the occasional lie-in, according to a new study published in the
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Growing evidence for an Alzheimer’s smell test?
Loss of smell is often an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, and, according to new research published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could possibly serve as a warning sign at the onset of the disease. Previous research has explored the relationship between loss of smell—or olfactory dysfunction—and the accumulation of a protein
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E. Coli in the fountain soda supply?
Soda fountains may dispense more than Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper, according to new research to be published this month in the International Journal of Food Microbiology. In an analysis of 90 soda and water samples taken from fountains in 30 different fast food restaurants in the Roanoke Valley region of Virginia, researchers from Hollins
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Preventing girls’ knee injuries on the soccer field
With the increasing popularity of soccer around the world comes a corresponding uptick in soccer-related injuries. And considering that fútbol fever has grown particularly rapidly among women in recent years—the number of female soccer players grew by 19% between 2000 and 2006, to 26 million players—female futbolistas have been
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Next on New York’s health agenda: curbing salt intake
In recent years New York City has earned a reputation for ambitious—and some argue, overreaching—efforts to improve its’ citizens health. In 2006, the city’s Board of Health voted to ban trans fats in restaurant cooking. Two years later, they mandated that any restaurants with 15 or more chain locations post calorie content in their
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Ability to breast-feed may be influenced by hormones
Whether or not a mother can successfully breast-feed her infant may have to do with her concentrations of testosterone, according to a new study from researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The study, published in the journal Acta Obstetricia and Gynecologica Scandinavica, followed 180 women from pregnancy
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