Girls who begin menstruating at a younger age may have a greater risk for developing heart disease later in life, according to new findings published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. The study included 15,807 middle-aged and senior women, whose cardiovascular health and mortality were tracked from 1993 to 1997,
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For patients battling severe depression, antidepressant medications are still the best option for treatment, but these drugs may offer little benefit to patients suffering from milder forms of depression, according to a new analysis published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The review, which analyzed data
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More than three quarters of patients who underwent sinus surgery to combat chronic sinusitis—or persistent sinus infection—reported a significant reduction in pain and improvement in quality of life, according to a new study published in this month’s issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. Researchers
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Video games are a controversial topic these days. Do popular games cater enough to a female audience? Can interactive games introduce a new forum for sexual predators? Is there such a thing as video game addiction? Yet, for all of the negative perceptions and criticisms of video games, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting their
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It’s New Year’s Eve, and for many people that means some confetti, bubbly and even a midnight kiss. But if you hope that for that kiss to turn into something more, safe sex advocates emphasize the importance of curbing your cocktail intake, and remembering contraception. Research sponsored by the sexual health non-profit group Marie
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Raising children in an über-hygienic atmosphere may inhibit immune system development key to fighting infection and disease later in life, according to a new study from researchers at Northwestern University. Researchers followed a group of more than 3,000 Filipino children from their mother’s third trimester of pregnancy through 22
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Informally, it’s a measure medical professionals have been using for centuries—if an adult patient looks “old for his age,” that’s generally considered a sign of poor health. A new study published in the British Medical Journal put that folk wisdom to the test, in a study of more than 1,800 twins ages 70 and older. As part of the
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For brain surgery patients, a doctor’s bedside exam is still superior to a routine CT scan for identifying potential post-surgical complications, according to a study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery. Researchers from the Department of Neurological Surgery at Loyola University in Chicago examined the records of 251 patients who
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For several decades it has been widely accepted in the field of education that certain people learn better using specific teaching techniques—that some of us gain knowledge more efficiently through verbal training, while others are more visual learners, for example. Yet, according to a review of previous research into this subject
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Part of the reason people tend to gain weight around the holidays may have to do with the way that we think about food, and eating, outside of our workweek routines. According to research published in the Fall 2009 issue of the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, our tendency to separate eating habits into different
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Researchers from Imperial College London may have come up with a novel way to reduce the risk of malaria—interrupting the fertilization process among mosquitoes who carry the disease. The Anopheles gambiae species of mosquito, which is largely responsible for the transmission of malaria throughout Africa, mates only once in a lifetime,
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A dog from the New York City suburb of White Plains is the first in the nation to have a case of H1N1 flu, according to the Associated Press. The 13-year-old male mixed breed, who is now recovering, was taken to a veterinary hospital in Bedford Hills, New York, after showing signs of breathing problems. The dog supposedly caught the flu
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The sudden death of 32-year-old actress Brittany Murphy from a reported cardiac arrest on Sunday morning has left her friends and loved ones scrambling for answers, and the public wondering what could have ended the former Clueless star’s life so abruptly. Initial reports suggests that Murphy died of natural causes, and an autopsy, which
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