Health

Sunshine Dwojak, a fourth-year Harvard Medical School student, was 26 when her mother died of heart disease, leaving behind three children. Dwojak’s mother was 48.

New research from Harvard’s Concord Field Station has shown that the common perception of a muscle as a single functional unit is incorrect and that different sections within an individual muscle actually do different work.

Researchers affiliated with the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) report in the Nov. 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine evidence that men who take beta-carotene supplements for 15 years or longer may have less cognitive decline and better verbal memory than those who do not.

New research from Harvard’s Concord Field Station has shown that the common perception of a muscle as a single functional unit is incorrect and that different sections within an individual…

Men who are overweight or obese when diagnosed with  prostate cancer are at greater risk of death after treatment, according to a  new study in the December 15, 2007 issue…

New research out of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including nonherbal tea and broccoli, was associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer.

Sunshine Dwojak, a fourth-year Harvard Medical School student, was 26 when her mother died of heart disease, leaving behind three children.  Dwojak’s mother was 48. “My grandmother said our family…

Our increasingly interconnected world has made it easier for information and disease to spread. However, a new study from Harvard University and Cornell University shows that fewer “degrees of separation” can make social networks too weak to disseminate behavioral change. The finding that “small world” networks are limited in their power to shape individual behavior could have implications for health care policy and the treatment of epidemics.

In the dark of the Sri Lankan cloud forest, the researchers’ only guide was the headlamps they used to light up the night, illuminating the cold, gray mist that drifted through the trees.

An international team of scientists Sunday (Nov. 4) announced the results of a systematic effort to map the genetic changes underlying lung cancer, the world’s leading cause of cancer deaths.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a gene involved in rheumatoid arthritis, a painful inflammation that affects 2.1 million Americans and which can destroy cartilage and bone within the afflicted joint.

Approximately 15 percent of teens receiving routine outpatient medical care in a New England primary care network had positive results on a substance abuse screening test, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

An enormous effort to decode the DNA of one of science’s most important laboratory animals — the fruit fly — ended in success this week as a collaboration of researchers from 16 nations announced the sequencing of 10 fly species’ genomes.

Barry R. Bloom, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), is being awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The University annually awards one…

An enormous effort to decode the DNA of one of the most important laboratory animals — the fruit fly — ended in success this week as a collaboration of researchers…

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a gene involved in rheumatoid arthritis, a painful autoimmune disease that affects 2.1…

An international team of scientists today announced the results of a systematic effort to map the genetic changes underlying lung cancer, the world’s leading cause of cancer deaths. Appearing in…

Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier Friday evening issued a call for new approaches to advance the fight against disease, embracing cross-institutional collaborations at Harvard as a way to bring…

Approximately 15 percent of middle and upper middle class teens receiving routine outpatient medical care in a New England primary care network had positive results on a substance abuse questionnaire,…

Women who followed a combination of five or more lifestyle factors, including changing specific aspects of their diets, experienced more than 80 percent less relative risk of infertility due to ovulatory disorders compared to women who engaged in none of the factors.

By activating multiple fluorescent proteins in neurons, neuroscientists at Harvard University are imaging the brain and nervous system as never before, rendering these cells in a riotous spray of colors dubbed a “Brainbow.”

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently awarded the distinction of fellow to four Harvard faculty members. In all, 471 new members were named for their efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.

Of the 47 million uninsured Americans, one in every eight (12.2 percent) is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance who are also Harvard Medical School researchers. The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Approximately 1.8 million veterans (12.7 percent of nonelderly veterans) were uninsured in 2004, up 290,000 since 2000, the study found. An additional 3.8 million members of their households were also uninsured and ineligible for VA care.

A new survey of U.S. medical students shows they receive little training about what they should or should not do in wartime, despite ethical questions over physician involvement in prisoner interrogation and a legal framework making a “doctor draft” possible.

Ancient DNA retrieved from the bones of two Neanderthals suggests that at least some of them had red hair and pale skin, scientists report this week in the journal Science. The international team says that Neanderthals’ pigmentation may even have been as varied as that of modern humans, and that at least 1 percent of Neanderthals were likely redheads.

Researchers at Harvard and the University of Hawaii believe they’ve resolved a long-standing controversy over the roots of islands — volcanoes in the middle of tectonic plates — showing that the islands’ lava provides a window into the early Earth’s makeup.

By activating multiple fluorescent proteins in neurons, neuroscientists at Harvard University are imaging the brain and nervous system as never before, rendering their cells in a riotous spray of colors dubbed a “Brainbow.”

One in every eight (12.2 percent) of the 47 million Americans without health insurance is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by Harvard Medical…

A new study by researchers at Institute for Technology Assessment in Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Department of Radiology finds that  physicians who consistently refer patients to themselves or members of…

Social epidemiologist Lisa Berkman has been appointed director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman today announced. “I am extremely pleased that Professor…