An egg producer in Iowa is recalling 228 million eggs, as the federal government reports a multi-state outbreak of salmonella.
Infection with the bacterium salmonella enteritidis can cause fever, abdominal cramps and diarrhea. Sickness usually only lasts a few days, with no long-term consequences. But the infection can be fatal if the …
They have treadmills and exercise bikes, but astronauts do not maintain muscle mass during long space voyages — a finding that suggests big problems on manned missions to other planets.
Kids who are young for their grade level are unusually likely to be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — a worrying sign that, for many kids, plain old immaturity has been misdiagnosed as a clinical disorder.
In two separate studies — both appearing in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Health …
Acupuncture has been — how shall we say? — one of the less ridiculed techniques of alternative medicine, at least in recent years. A body of evidence shows that it does indeed relieve pain, for many conditions. But a study released today suggests that acupuncture probably only works because patients believe that it will — and it’s the …
Nearly 30% of new couples now meet online. Today the Internet is the second-most common way to meet a partner, according to results from the How Couples Meet and Stay Together Survey, with web introductions ranked only behind introduction by mutual friends.
Heart disease may be the world’s leading cause of death, but cancer is the planet’s No.1 “economic killer,” according to a report this week from the American Cancer Society. The AP reports:
Cancer’s economic toll was $895 billion in 2008 — equivalent to 1.5 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, the report says. That’s in terms
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A protein known for its role in Rett syndrome — a rare genetic brain disorder — also works to regulate cocaine addiction, new research shows.
In a study published today in Nature Neuroscience, Florida researchers were able to mimic in rats a human’s transition to cocaine addiction: the transition, that is, from controlled intake …
There’s been a big hubbub this past week about antibiotics. After Lancet Infectious Diseases reported the spread of a new drug-resistant superbug spreading from south Asia, news agencies around the world reported “panic” and “fear and loathing” over the germs’ possible consequences. Some experts claimed the news was overblown –that the …
It’s summer, so with luck you didn’t spend all weekend indoors glued to the screen. In case you missed these headlines when they broke, here are the biggest health stories of the past two days:
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When two journalists discovered that formaldehyde was the miracle agent behind their sleek hair-dos, they decided to dig a little further into their beauty products’ ingredient lists. What they found was terrifying. That …
Yet another new study — this one is in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine — is showing a link between asthma and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. Researchers have found that, among 320,000 kids in 50 countries, 13- and 14-year-olds who take acetaminophen are more than twice as likely to have …
Pricey drugs to reduce blood pressure appear no better at preventing heart disease than cheap, generic diuretics, which have been around for decades.
This is the result of a 13-year study of roughly 33,000 Americans who use anti-hypertensive drugs. The hypertension patients were randomly assigned in the 1990s to receive either a …
The Internet’s a-buzz with news of Ron Sveden, the 75-year-old Cape Cod man who discovered that a growth in his lung was not, as feared, a tumor — but rather a pea plant. A seed had somehow lodged itself in his lung, presumably after some food found its way down the wrong tube, and the seed then sprouted.
But how is this …
