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.
Attention-deficit diagnosis depends on kids’ birthdays, study shows
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: A 2,000-year tradition of placebo effect?
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 …
How couples meet
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.
The world’s costliest disease
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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Chocolate Helps the Heart — But Not If You Eat It Everyday
Chocolate can certainly make you feel better, and the evidence continues to grow that it may do the body good as well — but only, natch, in moderation.
Researchers in Boston and Stockholm found that women in a large Swedish …
Understanding the mind of a cocaine addict
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 …
The end of antibiotics?
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 …
Top 5 health stories of the weekend
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:
- Plan C. The FDA approved a new emergency-contraception pill on Friday. Unlike the existing Plan B, this latest drug — already sold in Europe
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Q&A: The Dangers That Lurk in Your Make-Up Bag
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 …
Asthma and Tylenol: How strong is the evidence?
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 …
Cheap drugs are just as effective at preventing heart disease, long-term study shows
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 …
Was the JetBlue slide incident caused by head injury?
Many explanations have been offered for JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s meltdown and dramatic emergency slide exit on Monday—from “air rage” to suggestions of a relapse into alcoholism. But none of the media coverage has noted what could be the most obvious and chilling reason for his bizarre behavior: at the beginning of …