Health
-
How to fight depression? Faster.
Hope flags when medications fail, isolating and endangering patients. Backed by a major grant, 2 Harvard scientists are focused on reducing the distance between diagnosis and recovery.
-
Threat of mosquito-borne diseases rises in U.S. with global temperature
Experts fear more cases of West Nile virus, EEE (and possibly Zika, Dengue fever) as warm seasons get longer, wetter
-
Seem like peanut allergies were once rare and now everyone has them?
Surgeon, professor Marty Makary examines damage wrought when medicine closes ranks around inaccurate dogma
-
3 million Americans have dental implants — but procedure wasn’t always ‘routine’
Surgeon recounts changes in field over 40-year career — from titanium screws to bone regeneration — as he accepts Goldhaber Award
-
Getting to the bottom of long COVID
A reservoir of virus in the body may explain why some people experience long COVID symptoms
-
‘Heartbreaking’ encounter inspired long view on alcohol
One encounter changed everything for researcher who hopes to help mothers and families detect and treat the effects of dangerous drinking
-
It may someday be possible to stay slim while eating what you want
A study led by Joslin Diabetes Center researchers and published in the Jan. 24, 2003 issue of the journal Science brings scientists one step closer to turning the dream of…
-
Men can reduce stroke risk by eating fish
Researchers tracked the diet and health outcomes of more than 43,000 male participants for 12 years. Using detailed food frequency questionnaires, participants were asked how often they ate fish, ranging…
-
Many Americans hold incorrect beliefs about smallpox and smallpox vaccine
If physicians are reluctant to be vaccinated themselves against smallpox, large numbers of Americans will be unwilling to do it voluntarily. Also, if there are deaths from side effects of…
-
Hospital length of stay may not affect a newborn’s health
Researcher Jeanne M. Madden and colleagues used seven-and-a-half years of data on 20,366 mother-infant pairs with normal vaginal deliveries within a large Massachusetts health maintenance organization to determine the effects…
-
Formin gene may explain a common cause of female infertility
Harvard Medical School researchers Philip Leder and Benjamin Leader have discovered that oocytes from female mice without the formin gene Fmn2 cannot correctly position the metaphase I DNA-spindle. This produces…
-
Replacing joints early may be better than waiting for some osteoarthritis sufferers
In a study, scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Toronto Western Hospital followed the progress of patients who opted to have joint replacement surgery. They found that those…
-
Hormone replacement therapy may lower degenerative eye disease risk in postmenopausal women
ARM is a degenerative eye disease that affects the macula, which is responsible for central vision, which is necessary for reading, driving and recognizing people’s faces. Advanced ARM is the…
-
Chlamydia pneumoniae may contribute to heart attacks, strokes
Murat Kalayoglu of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Peter Libby of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Gerald Byrne of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center searched MEDLINE…
-
Risk of stroke from obesity is now measurable
While it has been suspected for some time that being overweight could potentially increase a person’s chances of a stroke, a study published in the Dec. 9, 2002, issue of…
-
Gene signature identifies leukemia patients who should avoid transplants
It was previously known that only slightly over half of the patients with adult T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) could be cured with chemotherapy. Adult ALL patients often undergo transplants…
-
Physicians say they have personally experienced medical errors
A nationwide survey examined the views of 831 physicians in April-July 2002 and 1,207 adults in April-June 2002. Some 42 percent of the public and more than one-third of U.S.…
-
Study of phthalate exposure in humans finds association with sperm DNA damage
Phthalates are a class of compounds used to hold color and scent in many cosmetics and personal care items such as soaps, detergents, skin preparations and aftershave lotions, and they…
-
New drug combination may prevent dangerous complication of bone marrow transplantation
An ongoing clinical study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists suggests that a three-drug therapy, which includes a novel medication called sirolimus, reduces graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in stem cell transplant patients…
-
Scientists discover gene “signature” for tumor’s tendency to spread
Most cancer deaths are caused not by the original or primary tumor but by the metastasizing of tumor cells to other organs. Until now, cancer specialists have viewed the development…
-
Study predicts risk of prostate cancer death
Researchers followed 381 people to “identify predictors of time to prostate specific death following external radiation therapy.” “The results of this study give us a better understanding of what form…
-
Bottle-feeding before bed time may increase risk of childhood asthma
Nearly one in 13 children in America has asthma. The National Institutes of Health reports that the prevalence of asthma around the world has doubled in the last 15 years,…
-
Researchers shed light on genetic defects that cause diabetes
New findings by researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center visualize the protein that is mutated in most individuals having a form of diabetes called Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY).…
-
Nuts lower diabetes risk
Women in a study who reported eating nuts at least five times per week reduced their risk of type 2 diabetes by almost 30 percent compared to those who rarely…
-
Protein predicts heart disease better than cholesterol
C-reactive protein’s claim to fame is based on its power to predict a woman’s risk of developing heart attack and stroke. In fact, high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) were…
-
Stem cells reduce brain damage
Mice with the kind of brain damage caused by strokes or cerebral palsy received implants of stem cells that resulted in the spontaneous replacement of many of the missing cells,…
-
Research finds benefits for adults who have tonsils removed
A study followed 83 chronic tonsillitis sufferers over a three-year period. Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers found that removing the tonsils was ultimately more effective than antibiotic treatments because those…
-
Key gene discovered for obesity and diabetes
Obesity is closely associated with insulin resistance and is one of the leading risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Both affect more than 50 percent of the U.S. population. Little…
-
New alternative to USDA dietary guidelines nearly twice as effective in reducing risk for major chronic disease
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health rigorously assessed the diets of more than 100,000 men and women and found that the reduction in risk was nearly twice as…
-
Outpatient cardiology care improves survival odds after heart attack
Previous research suggests that patients may live longer if they are under a cardiologist’s care while hospitalized for myocardial infarction. In a new study, John Ayanian, Harvard Medical School associate…
-
Strict enforcement of lead abatement policies saves communities money
Exposure to lead is determined by blood tests, and measured in micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set a “level of…
-
Drinking and hormones, alone and together, increase risk of breast cancer
According to the American Cancer Society, more than 190,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually. It is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women today. Using data from…
-
Incidence of hip fractures reduced by walking
In the United States, one in every three adults 65 years old or older falls each year, with hip fractures resulting in the greatest number of deaths and most serious…
-
Enzyme linked to pathology of Parkinson’s disease appears two-faced
A finding by Harvard Medical School researchers adds a new wrinkle to the story of Parkinson’s disease and insight into how failure to dispose of proteins can wreak havoc on…
-
New device documents clot formation in living mice
In the October 2002 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, Bruce and Barbara Furie, both Harvard Medical School professors of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, reportrf on the…
-
Long-term memory not fixed until after age one
When does long-term memory develop? This was a natural question for Conor Liston, a Harvard senior, and his mentor Jerome Kagan, Starch Research Professor of Psychology. Liston conducted experiments under…