Health
-
Your brain on advanced meditation
Where do science and ancient wisdom align? Take our quiz to find out.
-
How COVID-era trick may transform drug, chemical discovery
Harvard chemists, inspired by group-testing strategy, develop faster way to identify useful catalyst combinations
-
Missed opportunities to catch cases of domestic abuse
Study finds orthopedists, who treat kind of injuries that result from partner violence, refer patients to programs at very low rates
-
After the disaster, living for today
Study looks at why risky behavior surged in wake of 2011 tsunami, earthquake
-
Is a chatbot therapist better than nothing?
Experts discuss role of AI and other technology in future of mental health care
-
Taking a fresh look at definition of autism
Some families, activists say term is too broad, masks unique issues of most severe cases as surging rates, federal plans turn spotlight on disorder
-
Many have ‘cancer,’ but few progress to true disease
Folkman and Kalluri suggest that most tumors don’t develop a blood supply that allows them to grow and progress to cancer, because people produce natural inhibitors of blood vessel growth,…
-
Cystic fibrosis gene linked to fatty acid defects
Researchers already understood that the defective CFTR gene causes CF, explains senior author Steven D. Freedman, M.D., Ph.D., of the gastroenterology division at BIDMC and associate professor of medicine at…
-
Studies find benefit in stop-smoking programs targeted for working-class groups
Researchers found that among both whites and blacks, smoking rates are highest among those in working-class, non-supervisory occupations, including blue-collar and service jobs, and those with less education and lower…
-
Study finds no direct links between testosterone therapy, diseases
A comprehensive review of 72 studies addresses the current controversy about testosterone replacement therapy and its potential health risks to men. “We reviewed decades of research and found no compelling…
-
Monkeys unable to master grammar crucial to human language
Grammar is essentially a system of rules for taking a finite set of discrete elements and combining them into a limitless range of novel expressions. For humans, grammar cobbles together…
-
Study suggests more cancer patients receiving aggressive care at end of life
Researchers reviewed the records of 28,777 Medicare-eligible patients aged 65 and older who died within one year of being diagnosed with lung, breast, colorectal, and other gastrointestinal tumors between 1993…
-
Idea inspires new screening test for anti-cancer agents
In a study published in the December 2003 issue of Cell, investigators from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute demonstrated that a new technique has helped them to identify a class of existing…
-
High intake of vitamin D linked to reduced risk of multiple sclerosis
More than 185,000 women from the Brigham and Women’s-based Nurses’ Health Study and Nurses’ Health Study II, who were free of multiple sclerosis (MS), were selected for a research study.…
-
Scorpion venom blocks bone loss
Rats given kalitoxin, from scorpion venom, enjoyed 84 percent less jawbone loss than those that didn’t get the injections. “We are very excited because this is the first demonstration that…
-
For-profit health plans did not restrict Medicare beneficiaries’ use of high-cost operative procedures
Testing the hypothesis that rates of use of 12 high-cost procedures would be lower in for-profit health plans than in not-for-profit plans, researchers analyzed Medicare HEDIS (Health Plan Employer Data…
-
MRI scan shows promise in treating bipolar disorder
A study published in the Jan. 1, 2004 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry had a surprising start. As Michael Rohan, imaging physicist in McLean Hospital’s Brain Imaging Center,…
-
Keeping synapses clean may hold key to fear-conditioning
As readers of introductory psychology texts know, animals easily learn to fear a harmless stimulus, such as a tone, if that stimulus is paired with a painful one, such as…
-
Coffee cuts diabetes risk
More than 125,000 study participants who were free of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease at the start of a study were selected from the on-going Health Professionals Follow-up Study and…
-
New study identifies inhibitor of anthrax toxin
Findings by a research team could eventually lead to the development of a protease inhibitor drug, which in combination with antibiotics could be used to treat anthrax cases later in…
-
Many Americans at high risk from flu not vaccinated
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highly recommends the flu vaccine for certain high-risk groups including people with chronic illnesses, children between the ages of six and 23 months,…
-
Sperm cells made in lab can fertilize eggs
Scientists injected laboratory-created sperm into eggs, and the resulting embryos grew to the point where they would normally be implanted into a womb. The experiment was done with mouse stem…
-
One combination of AIDS drugs appears better for starting treatment
Combination drug therapy – also called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) – made a huge difference in the treatment of HIV infection during the 1990s, changing HIV/AIDS into an illness…
-
Scientists create lab model of human pancreatic cancer
Currently, nearly all the 30,000 cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed annually are fatal within a matter of months because they are too advanced to remove surgically by the time they…
-
Researchers shed light on myotonic muscular dystrophy
Research by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) helps to explain the wide range of signs and symptoms associated with myotonic muscular dystrophy (MMD). The findings appeared in…
-
Ritalin use in childhood may increase depression
A study, led by McLean Hospital’s William Carlezon and Susan Andersen, found that adult rats given Ritalin as juveniles behaved differently than their placebo-treated counterparts in a host of tests…
-
Finding challenges predominant theory that arthritis prevents bone loss
For more than 30 years, it has been accepted in the medical community that women with arthritis are actually much less likely to experience accelerated bone loss. New findings, outlined…
-
Dramatic gains shown with moderate weight loss, exercise
A study of 35 obese people included three groups of volunteers; all were obese and had a body mass index above 30 kg/m2 and had insulin resistance. The first group…
-
Researchers find way to block SARS virus from entering cells and spreading infection
SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome – is a viral respiratory illness caused by coronavirus, a family of viruses also implicated in the common cold. SARS is a distinct form…
-
Strategies to help AIDS patients take medicines are cost effective
The effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection depends on how well patients adhere to complicated drug regimens. Researchers found that among patients with lower levels of adherence to their…
-
Smoking increases bleeding into the brain, study finds
A research team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that stroke risk for women increased proportionately with the number of cigarettes smoked each day. In contrast, women who stopped…
-
Regeneration of insulin-producing islets may lead to diabetes cure
Type 1 diabetes develops when the body’s immune cells mistakenly attack the insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas. As islet cells die, insulin production ceases, and blood sugar levels rise,…
-
Physicians report trouble obtaining specialty services for uninsured
A research team surveyed more than 2,000 physicians at U.S. academic health centers who had provided direct patient care during the preceding year. Among the questions asked were whether the…
-
Study challenges proposed changes to clinical definition of mental illness
As the American Psychiatric Association prepares for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’s fifth edition, there is debate over whether to eliminate milder forms of diseases to prevent…
-
Adolescent stress can change brain during adulthood
Researchers found that adult rats exposed to a social stress during adolescence (ages approximating 13 to 15 years in humans) showed a significant decrease in a specific protein found in…
-
Is your heart in the right place?
In a frog, the position of the heart is determined within the first hour in the womb, Harvard scientists have discovered. Researchers all over the world believe that frogs and…