Health

The importance of role disability, that is, inability to work or carry out usual activities, has become increasingly recognized as a major source of indirect costs of illness because of…

The forgotten faces of the AIDS epidemic belong to children: infected, neglected, and orphaned by a disease that ravages not only their bodies, but also their families and communities, according to a gathering of international AIDS experts Monday (Sept. 24).

Researchers believe they’ve found the cellular link between extremely restricted diets and dramatically lengthened lifespan and hope to use the knowledge to develop new treatments for age-related diseases.

Tiny islets in the Bahamas have proven useful laboratories to illustrate natural selection’s effects on island lizards, which saw their legs lengthen, then shorten as ground-dwelling predators drove them into the trees.

Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers have successfully synthesized a DNA-based memory loop in yeast cells, an experiment that marks a significant step forward in the emerging field of synthetic biology.

An architect of Massachusetts’ year-old experiment with universal health coverage said Monday (Sept. 17) that because of the experiment 170,000 people have insurance today who otherwise would not, but that the problem may be bigger than initially thought.

Nine Harvard researchers “well-positioned to make significant – and potentially transformative – discoveries in a variety of areas,” ranging from brain development to reprogramming stem cells, have been awarded special…

The public and private agencies that respond to war and disasters sometimes respond disastrously — and it’s time to do something about it. That was the basic message of a three-day Humanitarian Health Conference at Harvard Sept. 6-8, which drew more than 120 emergency physicians, epidemiologists, and professional aid workers from 68 organizations.

Researchers have coaxed adult stem cells into forming artificial heart valves that could one day mean fewer surgeries for children suffering from heart defects.

Harvard researchers have coaxed adult stem cells into forming artificial heart valves that could one day mean fewer surgeries for children suffering from heart defects. The scientists, at Harvard-affiliated Boston…

When trying to understand someone’s intentions, nonhuman primates expect others to act rationally by performing the most appropriate action allowed by the environment, according to a new study by researchers…

Over a century ago, scientists first proposed that height is a complex trait — one influenced by environmental factors and multiple genes. While subsequent studies revealed that most of the…

In a groundbreaking study, two Harvard scientists have for the first time extracted human DNA from ancient artifacts. The work potentially opens up a new universe of sources for ancient genetic material, which is used to map human migrations in prehistoric times.

Biologists at Harvard University have identified the ancient fossilized remains of a pollen-bearing bee as the first hint of orchids in the fossil record, a find they say suggests orchids are old enough to have coexisted with dinosaurs.

Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers have created a new material that they believe improves on an eight-year-old solution to a decades-long medical mystery over the cause of widespread artificial joint failure. The new material, developed at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and implanted for the first time July 19, could help fill the demand for higher-performance joints from a new generation of patients.

Richard Sidman, Bullard Professor of Neuropathology Emeritus at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and colleagues from Harvard and other universities and medical schools published the first report of a promising attempt to treat Parkinson’s in a humanlike animal in the July 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A remarkable convergence of new knowledge about the developing brain, the human genome, and the extent to which early childhood experiences influence later learning, behavior, and health now offers policymakers an exceptional opportunity to change the life prospects of vulnerable young children, says a new report from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

For years, scientists have searched in vain for slivers of the brain that might drive the dramatic differences between male and female behavior. Now biologists at Harvard University say these efforts may have fallen flat because such differences may not arise in the brain at all.

Stem cells apparently try to mend hearts damaged by heart attacks or high blood pressure. But they do not refresh hearts run down by aging. Evidence for this heartening and disheartening news comes from experiments with mice done at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Girls forced into the Indian sex trade at age 14 or younger show significantly higher rates of HIV infection than older girls and women similarly forced into prostitution, according to a new study that highlights for the first time the increased HIV risks faced by sex trafficked Nepalese girls and women.

A large-scale genomic study has uncovered new genetic variations associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), findings that suggest a possible link between MS and other autoimmune diseases. The study, led by…

Public health officials have been working hard to account for the dramatic rise in U.S. obesity rates. Many obvious factors, such as poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle, certainly contribute…

For most teenagers in the United States and Canada, fish and fruit are not high on their delicious list. Also, many of them — about 20 percent of those under 18 — cough, wheeze, and suffer from asthma and bronchitis. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found a connection between these two situations.

Hunter-gatherer instincts set loose in a world of modern food abundance are at the root of today’s obesity crisis, according to a Harvard psychologist.

Which is more likely to push a depressed child to suicide: not taking antidepressant drugs or taking antidepressant drugs? Medical experts have struggled with this question at least since 1990 when Harvard researchers reported that six people developed suicidal feelings soon after taking Prozac (fluoxetine). This was the first of the now widely prescribed serotonin drugs to ease depression. Called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, such medications ease the problems of depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive behavior by decreasing the activity of a brain chemical known to affect moods.

Women’s brains are different from men’s. That’s not news. What is news is that the differences are smaller than most people believe. They are not big enough to say that one sex is smarter or better at math than the other.

A new Joslin Diabetes Center-led study has further illuminated the role of genes in regulating body weight and fat distribution. Because obesity is a major risk factor for type 2…

If a painting’s worth were measured by the money it fetched, van Gogh’s famous rendering of his friend and physician Dr. Gachet would be among the most valuable in all…

Men who drink moderate amounts of red wine are only half as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as those who don’t drink it at all, according to a report in the June issue of Harvard Men’s Health Letter. What’s more, the beverage seems to be especially protective against the most advanced and aggressive cancers, lowering risk by about 60 percent.