Alcoholics’ brains may process emotion differently than those of people who don’t have a history of alcohol abuse, according to a study published in the November issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. There is ample research analyzing how alcoholics tend to process emotion distinctly and with a range of …
Mental Health
Do working women get lower quality sleep than men?
While domestic responsibilities are slowly being divvied up more equally among men and women with the increasing prevalence of working moms and stay-at-home dads, there is plenty of evidence suggesting that women still shoulder most of the household and child-rearing responsibilities. A study highlighted by the Economist earlier this …
Does cancer screening save lives? Not nearly as many as you might guess
Most people grossly overestimate the benefits of cancer screening, according to a new survey of 10,228 Europeans. A whopping 92% of women believe the life-expectancy benefit from breast-cancer screening is at least ten times bigger than it really is, or say that they don’t know how much benefit screening provides. (On average …
Weighing the benefits: When should kids get swine flu vaccines and drugs?
A new study in the British medical journal, BMJ, suggests that big-name flu treatments oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) have only a “small benefit” in kids under 12 — but can have serious side effects. Now, even though the study reviewed four trials in kids treated only for seasonal flu, people are already drawing …
Macho men are less likely to seek preventative health care, study says
Men with a strong sense of masculinity are about 50% less likely than their not-so-macho peers to seek out preventative health-care services, according to a survey of 1,000 middle-aged American men. What’s more, even though people with higher job status are usually more likely to follow health-care guidelines, that pattern doesn’t seem …
Four lifestyle rules to keep you healthy
Follow four simple rules and you could reduce your chronic-disease risk by as much as 80%, according to a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The golden lifestyle rules: never smoking, maintaining a healthy body weight, exercising regularly, and eating a balanced diet.
Sounds simple? It is — and yet only 9% of the nearly …
Stay positive: Study shows that optimists live longer
Optimists outlive pessimists, a new study shows. Of nearly 100,000 women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative, those who gave optimistic answers on a personality test were 9% less likely to develop heart disease within eight years — and 14% less likely to die — than women who got low optimism scores on the test.
TIME’s Alice …
Breastfeeding may lower risk of cancer
Women who breastfeed appear to have lower risk of developing pre-menopausal breast cancer than those who don’t, according to a new study released today in in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The stats are especially compelling for women with a family history of the disease. Among that group, women in the study who’d breastfed had just …
Urine tests could predict reaction to meds
Researchers in London say they may be able to predict a patient’s response to medication, simply by checking his or her urine. If it works, the technique would be a great boon for personalized medicine — not just helping to prevent adverse reactions, but also ensuring that patients get the most effective drug for their bodies, with …
Researchers find a new Alzheimer’s gene
Scientists from University of California, Irvine, have found a new genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. In a study of 381 people, those with Alzheimer’s were nearly twice as likely as people without the disease to have a certain form of a gene,TOMM40 (which stands for “translocase of outer mitochondrial membrane 40″). Although …
Simple ingredients
You may have heard the advice that says, if you’re going to buy a snack food, buy the one with the fewest ingredients. It won’t cut out the calories, but at least you’ll lose most of the additives, preservatives and unsatisfying artificial flavors. And on the whole less-processed foods (those with fewer ingredients) also contain more …
Happy language makes readers smile
Dutch scientists have shown that simply reading happy words — verbs like “to smile” and “to laugh” — can bring a smile to someone’s face. Reading unhappy words like “to cry,” on the other hand, tends to activate the muscles that control frowning. Not all words have equal pull on your facial muscles. Verbs seem to work much better …
Nurses’ advice: how to avoid a medical disaster
Medical errors kill more Americans each year than car crashes, breast cancer or AIDS, according to a 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine. So what can you do to protect yourself?
Today CNN sets out to answer exactly this. They interview a bunch of nurses and pump them for practical tips that you can use to ensure a safe hospital …
