Health

Jim Hu and colleagues at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) assessed surgical utilization and complications, lengths of hospital stay, and cancer outcomes in more than 2,700 men who underwent prostate cancer surgery.

For a while last month, whenever Scott Elfenbein ’11 was thirsty he’d take a pull or two from a Nalgene bottle. But Elfenbein was quaffing from Nalgene for science, not for convenience. He was one of about 80 Harvard College students who volunteered for a two-week April study intended to track levels of bisphenol A in their bodies.

The Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has relaunched its Web site, The Nutrition Source. One of the highlights of the improved site is a freely downloadable version of the Healthy Eating Pyramid, built by nutrition faculty at the School, which should appeal to educators and health professionals as well as institutions such as schools and hospitals.

This year six doctors are pursuing a one-year master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). The students are all part of the School’s flexible Special Study Program that allows them to design their own curriculum and tailor it to their individual interests.

Tuberculosis specialists came from universities around the country to discuss the state of the disease at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and to honor Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry R. Bloom, who has announced that he will be stepping down.

An innovative laser treatment for early vocal-cord cancer, developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), successfully restores patients’ voices without radiotherapy or traditional surgery, which can permanently damage vocal quality.

Using ingenious molecular espionage, scientists have found how a single key enzyme, seemingly the Swiss Army knife in HIV’s toolbox, differentiates and dynamically binds both DNA and RNA as part of the virus’s fierce attack on host cells. The work is described this week (May 7) in the journal Nature.

Women who quit smoking significantly reduce their risk of death from coronary heart disease within five years and have about a 20 percent lower risk of death from smoking-related cancers within that time period, according to a study in the May 7 issue of JAMA.

Women who quit smoking significantly reduce their risk ofdeath from coronary heart disease within 5 years and have about a 20percent lower risk of death from smoking-related cancers within thattime…

The official opening of the BASF Advanced Research Initiative at Harvard was celebrated with an inaugural two-day symposium (April 29-30) on biofilms.

Postmenopausal women taking hormone therapy appear to have an increased risk of stroke regardless of when they started treatment, according to a report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The risk of heart disease in women associated with being overweight or obese is reduced but not eliminated by higher levels of physical activity, according to a report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Harvard Professor of Biology and of Geology Charles Marshall presented his Tuesday (April 29), suggesting that it was an increase in interactions between species, such as predation, that drove an escalating evolutionary process that led to the development of teeth and claws and the wide variety of characteristics that we see among Earth’s animals today.

There have been many changes in the health care landscape over the two decades since Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) Department of Health Care Policy was inaugurated, but much work remains to ensure equitable, effective health care for all. That was the message of speakers at the 20th Anniversary Symposium of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy Tuesday (April 29) at the HMS New Research Building.

Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs’ closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein — along with that of 21 modern species — confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.

Paul Farmer remembers his patients and the lessons they’ve taught him, even the hard ones.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, in collaboration with Harvard University Health Services, have found that 90 days of vigorous athletic training produces significant changes in cardiac structure and function, and that the type of change varies with the type of exercise performed.

In a demonstration that even some of the most hard-to-treat tumors may one day succumb to therapies aimed at molecular “weak points,” researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report the first instance in which metastatic melanoma has been driven into remission by a targeted therapy.

One of the major aims of the U.S. health system is improving the health of all people, particularly those segments of the population at greater risk of health disparities. In fact, overall life expectancy in the United States increased more than seven years for men and more than six years for women between 1960 and 2000.

The Nutrition Round Table of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) honored Kenneth Cooper, groundbreaking author of the best-selling book “Aerobics,” with its Healthy Cup Award this past Tuesday (April 22).

Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs’ closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein — along with that of 21…

A new, long-term study of mortality trends in U.S. counties from 1960 to 2000 finds that an overall average life expectancy increase of 6.5 years for men and women is…

“Most of the time,” said noted psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman to a packed house of students, scholars, and faculty at the Yenching Auditorium (April 15), “we run at very low effort.” It was a sobering claim for the heady academic set, but according to Kahneman, no one is immune from the diagnosis. Even those with a high level of intelligence, he said, “don’t check themselves as much as they should.” The researcher was referring to the human tendency to judge things quickly, to go with the familiar or what looks correct instead of giving a question or a problem sufficient attention, reflection, and thought.

Genetic researchers crossed a critical threshold last year in their ability to understand complex diseases, posting a number of new discoveries that advanced knowledge of ailments caused by small contributions from multiple genes, the environment, and other causes.

“13 October 2003.” Saintyl Louistess remembered the exact date she found out she had AIDS.

Naturally elevated levels of the antioxidant urate may slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease in men.  Researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) and Harvard School of Public…

Infants and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are twice as likely to become overweight by age 3 than children who sleep longer. In addition, high levels of television viewing combined with less sleep elevate the risk, so that children who sleep less than 12 hours and who view two or more hours of television per day have a 16 percent chance of becoming overweight by age 3.

Since the 1859 publication of Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” efforts to trace evolutionary relationships among different classes of organisms have largely relied on external morphological observations.

Researchers at the Whitehead Institute and Harvard Stem Cell Institute(HSCI) have reported successfully reducing symptoms in a Parkinson’s disease rat model by using dopamine producing neurons derived from reprogrammed adult…

The discovery of a gene for a rare form of inherited iron deficiency may provide clues to iron deficiency in the general population – particularly iron deficiency that doesn’t respond…