Health

All Health

  • Cardiovascular risks seen from marathon running

    Researchers analyzed the blood of marathon runners less than 24 hours after they had finished a race. They found abnormally high levels of inflammatory and clotting factors of the kind…

  • Anthrax immunity gene found in mice

    Anthrax is an often fatal disease that is caused by a bacterium. It has been considered a prime biological weapon in the arsenal of terrorists since attacks in the United…

  • A strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body

    A Harvard Medical School research team has developed a strategy to neutralize anthrax toxin in the body. So far they have tried the treatment in rats. Normally, rats die within…

  • Researchers identify genes that trigger depression

    A substance known as CREB controls gene expression in the brain. It also appears to be active in mood disorders. A group of Harvard researchers at McLean Hospital in Belmont,…

  • Study shows strong public interest in genetic testing for Alzheimer’s disease

    A genetic test to determine a person’s chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease is still hypothetical. But scientists are getting closer and closer to being able to determine who is likely…

  • One-tenth of medical residents feel unprepared

    Findings from a study suggest that gaps exist in the preparedness of physicians to manage the full range of patients, procedures and problems they may encounter. A surprising one in…

  • Sorting good eggs from bad ones

    An oocyte is an immature egg cell in the ovaries. Before a woman is born, her ovaries will contain about five million eggs. At birth, about three million of those…

  • Cell death in eggs traced to smoking

    A woman is born with just so many egg cells, called oocytes. When she begins ovulating, she has about 400. Even though that may seem like a lot, considering the…

  • Common aspirin reveals mechanism of insulin resistance

    In 1876, a German professor described a treatment that led to rapid improvement in two men who were suffering from what doctors now recognize as classic type 2 diabetes. In…

  • Resistance to antibodies is reversed

    It’s a frightening — and increasingly common — problem. A patient seeks treatment for a particular ailment in a hospital and develops an entirely different disease: a bacterial infection that…

  • Researchers discover new type of cancer

    A team led by a Harvard researcher has identified a new type of cancer that primarily affects young girls. Sara Vargas, an instructor in pathology at Harvard Medical School and…

  • Harvard scientists identify chromosome location of genes associated with long life

    Scientists have long thought of aging as a complex process affected by perhaps a thousand genes. So a recent discovery by Harvard scientists that a gene or genes located on…

  • Nutrition book author Willett rebuilds USDA food pyramid

    For more than 20 years researchers at Harvard and elsewhere have been looking at the long-term health effects of eating certain types of foods. These researchers now have a good…

  • Drug hits new molecular target in mice

    When doctors diagnose and plan treatment for breast cancers they look for various indicators of how aggressive they are and what treatments will work best. Two-thirds of breast tumors are…

  • Study shows obesity can increase risk of pancreatic cancer

    Each year almost 30,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. About the same number of people are killed by it. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause…

  • Snack foods may increase risk of age-related sight loss

    Macular degeneration results from the malfunctioning or loss of function of photo-sensitive cells in the retina. According to the Macular Degeneration Foundation, more than 13 million people in the United…

  • Amniotic cells may be source of new tissue

    Babies born with congenital defects often require surgery. Surgeons face a problem, however — in adults, tissue for repair is borrowed from other areas of the body, but babies don’t…

  • Inflammatory villain turns do-gooder

    Many drugs try to tame inflammation by inhibiting molecular events occurring at the beginning of the body’s own immune response. But that may thwart the body’s attempt to heal. A…

  • Walking rhythm offers gait-way to reduce falls

    Over the past 10 years, Jeffrey Hausdorff has studied thousands of steps from hundreds of feet. The Harvard Medical School assistant professor says that complex patterns hidden in an ordinary…

  • Will vaccine defense help polish off tooth decay?

    The key to preventing cavities in teeth lies in controlling an acid-secreting bacterium known as Streptococcus mutans that lives in the mouth. Researchers at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine…

  • Diet and exercise dramatically delay type 2 diabetes

    Diabetes afflicts more than 16 million people in the United States; type 2 diabetes accounts for up to 95 percent of all diabetes cases. New findings from the Diabetes Prevention…

  • Are you an ‘early bird’ or a ‘night owl’?

    Harvard researchers working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that whether someone is a morning person or an evening person depends on a basic aspect of the circadian timing…

  • High levels of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder remain in Bosnian refugees

    In 1996, Harvard Medical School researchers began following the mental health impact of the Bosnian war on individuals in a refugee camp in Croatia. Most of the refugees have now…

  • Deadliest form of malaria is younger than previously believed

    Malaria kills more people than any other communicable disease except for tuberculosis. It is the world’s most serious parasitic tropical disease, resulting in 1 million to 3 million deaths annually.…

  • Adult stem cells effect a cure

    Using stem cells from the unborn to treat adult diseases has created an anguished public debate. Now research news from Harvard Medical School scientists may help to end that debate…

  • An alternate take on Alzheimer’s

    Much of Alzheimer’s research has focused on the role of a protein, amyloid-beta, found at high levels in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and which coagulates into plaques. Researcher Ashley…

  • Fireflies seen in a new light

    Anyone who has ever seen fireflies do their luminescent mating dance on a summer’s night has wondered: How do they light up like that? Now, two researchers, Sara Lewis from…

  • A familiar drug gives surprising hope against diabetic blindness

    A common complication of diabetes is diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by changes in the blood vessels of the retina. This form of retinopathy…

  • Green vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C reduces risk of heart disease

    Regularly eating fruits and vegetables, in particular green leafy vegetables and fruits that contain vitamin C, reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, according to researchers from the Harvard School…

  • Gene found for rare bone disorder

    Cherubism may sound angelic, but it certainly is not. The rare bone disorder afflicts children starting at about age 3 or 4, causing them to develop chubby cheeks and upward-looking…