In January of this year, public health officials applauded the fact that, after steadily rising for more than three decades, obesity levels in the U.S. finally appeared to be leveling off. And while holding steady with a third of the adult population obese and more than two thirds overweight hardly had health professionals jumping for
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A new study analyzing physical activity at different phases of life for more than 9,000 elderly women finds that routine exercise at any age was associated with a reduced risk for cognitive decline or dementia, but that regular physical activity during teenage years was most strongly linked to a lower risk for mental deterioration later
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There’s plenty of data showing how harmful smoking can be, and that goes for both smokers and the people around them. Two studies published in Pediatrics point out how indirect the effects can be. A study of paternal smoking in Hong Kong finds that children whose fathers smoke are heavier at seven and 11 years old than their …
A new report from the U.K.’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) concludes that, before 24 weeks, nerve endings in the brains of fetuses aren’t sufficiently developed to experience pain. The findings, based on a review of recent studies examining fetal development and capacity for pain, undermine the argument for a
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In the ongoing effort to better understand, diagnose, treat and hopefully one day even prevent the devastating mental decline of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers are taking a broad range of approaches — and some are even finding clues in unlikely places. As the New York Times reports, a new technique that combines a dye and brain scan
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Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab have come up with a way to test vision that doesn’t involve any hefty optometry equipment or even a visit to the eye doctor. A small, simple plastic device they’ve developed, when attached to the screen of a cell phone, can scan the eye and determine the appropriate
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A new report from the Commonwealth Fund once again highlights the discrepancy between U.S. spending on healthcare and the quality of that care. The new analysis compares spending and health outcomes of seven industrialized nations: the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. And the authors find that,
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A new study published in BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) adds to a growing body of research dedicated to understanding cancer risk potentially posed by cell phone use and proximity to cell phone towers. Researchers from Imperial College London set out to determine whether mothers whose children developed conditions such as
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There are many good reasons for new mothers to breastfeed their infants —studies have shown that babies digest mother’s milk better than formula, and that breast milk can build up babies’ immune systems and protect them from infection, leading to better health overall. Breast milk is full of antibodies and other agents that …
Exactly one year after Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act that gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco, a new set of rules is taking effect to curb the use of deceptive marketing terms and limit children’s access to tobacco products. Among the new regulations that
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A new study from Swiss researchers adds to the ongoing debate over the best method for maintaining the highest educational standards for medical residency programs while also ensuring optimal patient safety. While plenty of research has indicated that exhaustion among medical professionals can lead to more mistakes, critics of rules
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A small proportion of obese people may not face a higher risk for diabetes and heart disease often associated with obesity, according to new research presented this past weekend at a meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego. In a long-term study that included more than 1,300 obese patients between the ages of 28 to 75, researchers
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A cross-post from Time.com’s Ecocentric blog:
A new study published Saturday in the British medical journal the Lancet found that tens of millions of people in Bangladesh have been exposed to poisonous levels of arsenic from …
