Small scale increases in the cost of soda likely have little impact on childhood obesity, according to a study published in the journal Health Affairs. Soda taxes have been proposed as a means for fighting obesity by several prominent health researchers, and some public health officials have sparked controversy by advocating for steep
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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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In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved new criteria for the prescribing of the cholesterol-lowering drug (statin) Crestor (rosuvastatin calcium) to include people at low risk for heart attack or stroke — …
How soon your performance will be rated may influence how well you do, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. In the study, researchers Keri L. Kettle and Gerald Häubl from the University of Alberta set out to determine whether the timing of feedback—how soon you learn of your grade, or get your
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Growing resistance to two leading antibiotic treatments could make the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea more difficult to treat, according to warnings from a British health official reported by the BBC. At a meeting of the Society for General Microbiology in Edinburgh, Dr. Catherine Ison, a gonorrhea specialist from the U.K.’s
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Adding to a growing understanding of the underlying brain functions involved in moral decision-making, a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University—including neuroscientist Marc Hauser, author of the 2006 book Moral Minds— found that manipulating activity in a certain brain region
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In a decision that could have broad ramifications for future genetic research and medical practice, United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet ruled Monday that patents on two genes linked to ovarian and breast cancer, BRCA-1 and BRCA-2, were invalid. The case brought by a group including the American Civil Liberties Union, the
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Exploring the hypothesis that deficits in reward processing may contribute to obesity by making it difficult for certain individuals to stop eating once their energy needs are met—either because they are prewired with faulty reward systems or because “excessive consumption of palatable food can drive reward dysfunction”—researchers
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Nearly everyone—97.5% of us—is pretty bad at multitasking behind the wheel, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Utah. Most of us get a lot more sloppy with our driving when also carrying on a phone conversation: an analysis of about 200 people asked to talk on the phone (on a hands-free device) while also
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In a study conducted by Dr. Des Powe and colleagues at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, England and Germany’s Witten University, breast cancer patients treated with beta blockers—medication used to reduce blood pressure by limiting the effects of the hormone epinephrine—had higher survival rates and lower levels of metastatis
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According to a commentary published this week in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), despite a slight overall decrease in head and neck cancers worldwide, there has been a recent surge in one particular form of the disease—oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma—that may be due to the spread of the human papillomavirus (HPV) through
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Previous research has found that people who generally have more positive emotions tend to experience a broad range of benefits—more stable marriages, better social skills and just greater happiness overall—compared with those who are more dominated by negative emotions. One measurement that researchers use when assessing emotions is
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To analyze how portion sizes have changed, not just in the last two decades, but in the last millennium, the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab and his brother, a biblical scholar at Virginia Wesleyan College, sized up portion sizes in paintings of the Last Supper over time, according to an article published earlier
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