Featured series 
Tag: Health
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Nation & World
Lipsitch catches the flu in action
Harvard School of Public Health Epidemiology Professor Marc Lipsitch is helping the government plan its response to H1N1 flu.
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Nation & World
Quest for a Long Life Gains Scientific Respect
In mice, sirtuin activators are effective against lung and colon cancer, melanoma, lymphoma, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease, said David Sinclair, a Harvard Medical School researcher and co-founder of Sirtris. The drugs reduce inflammation, and if they have the same effects in people, could help combat many diseases that have an inflammatory…
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Nation & World
State’s health system popular
The poll, by the Harvard School of Public Health and The Boston Globe, found that opposition to the law stands at 28 percent, up slightly from 22 percent in a June 2008 survey.
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Nation & World
Flu threats are tough to pin down
Harvard’s Lipsitch had a central role in developing the swine flu planning scenario authored by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. That report – which said that in a “plausible scenario,’’ H1N1 could kill 30,000 to 90,000 – emphasizes “this is a planning scenario, not a prediction….”
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Nation & World
Aspirin Can Prevent Colon Cancer in High-Risk Group, Study Says
The Harvard study suggested aspirin could prevent tumors from growing by inhibiting Cox-2, an enzyme that may play a role in the initial growth of a tumor.
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Nation & World
Harvard Medical Study Links Lack of Insurance to 45,000 U.S. Deaths a Year
The Harvard study found that people without health insurance had a 40 percent higher risk of death than those with private health insurance — as a result of being unable to obtain necessary medical care.
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Nation & World
Diabetes Medication May Get New Life as Cancer Treatment
A national tax of 1 cent per ounce of soda and other sugary drinks could stem the United States’ obesity epidemic, while generating $14.9 billion the first year alone, health experts say.
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Nation & World
Lloyd M. Aiello receives Alpert Prize for preventing blindness in diabetic patients
Lloyd M. Aiello, a Harvard Medical School clinical professor of ophthalmology at Joslin Diabetes Center’s Beetham Eye Institute, will receive the 2008-09 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize on Sept. 29.
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Nation & World
Around the Schools: Harvard School of Public Health
A new center focusing on mathematical modeling of drug resistance, seasonal infectious diseases, and intervention allocation will be established at the Harvard School of Public Health.
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Nation & World
$100,000 in grants available for community projects
The second round of Harvard Allston Partnership Grant Funds totaling $100,000 are now available to community members and nonprofit groups to help support neighborhood improvement projects, cultural enrichment, and education programs benefiting the North Allston/North Brighton community.
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Nation & World
Is all that scanning putting us at risk?
Last year, when Dr. Aaron Sodickson and his colleagues counted the number of medical scans patients underwent in the emergency room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, some patients clearly stood out. One 45-year-old woman with a history of kidney stones had 70 CT scans over 22 years.
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Nation & World
Business not ready for flu, study says
Many American businesses are unprepared to deal with widespread employee absenteeism in the event of a swine flu outbreak, a Harvard School of Public Health study says. The survey, released yesterday, found that two-thirds of more than 1,000 businesses questioned said they could not maintain normal operations if half their workers were out for two…
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Nation & World
Insured, but Bankrupted Anyway
Dr. David Himmelstein is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a primary care doctor at the Cambridge Hospital in Massachusetts. “Our most recent study found that nearly two-thirds of Americans who declared bankruptcy cited illness or medical bills as a significant cause of their bankruptcies. And of the medically bankrupt, three-quarters…
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Nation & World
PCB risk feared at older N.E. schools
“It’s contradictory . . . because you don’t have to test, but if you do and you find it over 50 parts per million, then this whole cascade of regulatory requirements kicks in,’’ said Robert Herrick, senior lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health…
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Nation & World
Parmigiani and Dominici named professors of biostatistics at HSPH
Giovanni Parmigiani and Francesca Dominici have been named professors of biostatistics at HSPH.
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Nation & World
Wiggling Their Toes at the Shoe Giants
Todd Byers was among more than 20,000 people running the San Francisco Marathon last month. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, he might have blended in with the other runners, except for one glaring difference: he was barefoot.
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Nation & World
Beyond the Biopsy: A Tiny Monitor for Cancer
Doctors doing a needle biopsy to analyze tissue for cancer may one day add a second step to the procedure: depositing a tiny device at the site to report on growth of a tumor — and even the effects of chemotherapy.
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Nation & World
Mohan Sundararaj of HSPH harnesses the power of music to heal
It was 1998 and Mohan Sundararaj was frustrated. A medical student at India’s Sri Ramachandra Medical College and the child of two physicians, Sundararaj was committed to his medical education but frustrated by the demands that kept him from his other passion: the piano.
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Nation & World
H1N1 influenza advice for Commencement week visitors
While at Harvard, should you experience any symptoms consistent with H1N1 flu, you should contact Harvard University Health Services (HUHS).
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Nation & World
Mobile health van returns $36 for every dollar invested
Researchers from Harvard Medical School (HMS) have developed a prototype “return on investment calculator” that can measure the value of prevention services. Using a Boston-based mobile health program called the “Family Van” to test the tool, the team found that for the services provided in 2008, this program, in the long run, will return $36…
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Nation & World
H1N1 influenza advice for Commencement week visitors
While at Harvard, should you experience any symptoms consistent with H1N1 flu, you should contact Harvard University Health Services (HUHS).
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Nation & World
Chemical leaches from plastic drinking bottles into people
A new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles, the popular, hard-plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles, showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA).
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Nation & World
Acid-suppressive medicines increase pneumonia risk for hospital patients
Ever since a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors was introduced to the market in the late 1980s, the use of these acid-suppressive medications for heartburn, acid reflux, and other gastrointestinal symptoms has grown tremendously. The widespread use has extended to the inpatient hospital setting, where patients are often routinely given the medications as…
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Nation & World
New Web page addresses travelers’ health safety
Because of the recent outbreak of the H1N1 influenza, commonly called the “swine flu,” Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) and the Provost’s Office have created a new Web site to address concerns regarding the medical safety of international travel
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Nation & World
Lack of sleep is easier on older adults than others
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger adults. The findings appeared online on May 3, in an advance online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
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Nation & World
‘Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine’
What happens when a Buddhist monk visiting the United States is hospitalized, terminally ill with liver cancer? Does religion interfere with his medical care? What about his Buddhist brethren, unable to join him bedside? Who will provide the appropriate services and ceremonies? Well, says Wendy Cadge, that’s where hospital chaplains come in.
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Nation & World
The environment
THE ENVIRONMENT: William Clark, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development, Harvard Kennedy School
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Nation & World
Family Van helps drive medical assistance for communities in need
In 1989, Nancy Oriol, now the dean for students at Harvard Medical School (HMS), had a vision: to establish a program that could provide basic health services to individuals in Boston who are unable to access primary health care.
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Nation & World
Malnutrition, obesity present global food challenges
Even as public health officials deal with the age-old problems of starvation and malnutrition, new nutritional maladies linked to Western diets and lifestyles are spreading around the world, complicating the global nutrition picture.