Health
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How HIV research has reshaped modern medicine
Decades of scientific work turned the tide on a fatal disease and yielded insights into immunity, vaccines, and more
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Use of new diet drugs likely to mushroom
Study estimates over half of Americans eligible to take them based on conditions, underscoring need to ensure equity of access.
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Rapid relief for the severely depressed? There’s a catch.
Ketamine carries risks, say researchers. Yet for some patients, it’s ‘the only thing that works.’
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New frontiers in cancer care
In podcast, experts discuss breakthroughs in treatment, from genomic sequencing to AI, and how close we are to personalized vaccines
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Too much sitting hurts the heart
Even with exercise, sedentary behavior can increase risk of heart failure by up to 60%, according to study
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Is cheese bad for you?
Nutritionist explains why you’re probably eating way too much
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Grandkids can make you sick
A study by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School shows that women who care for grandchildren more than nine hours a week have a…
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Elevated BMI may not increase risk of death among men with heart attack or stroke
“This study does not eliminate a small amount of risk for being overweight or obese,” said author Howard D. Sesso, Sc.D., M.P.H., of BWH. “However, it does tell physicians that…
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Drugs are effective against eye disease
Results of two large international clinical trials have shown positive results using Macugen, an experimental treatment that targets the abnormal blood vessels found in the “wet” form of macular degeneration.…
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Gene expression profiling helps in ovarian cancer prognosis
Steven A. Cannistra, M.D., director of Gynecologic Medical Oncology at BIDMC and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says ovarian cancer is often not detectable until its later…
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Studies demonstrate positive data in treatment of hepatitis C
Presented by Nezam Afdhal, M.D., chief of Hepatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, the new findings demonstrate promising results…
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Risk of becoming resistant to antibiotics may be lower than expected for chronic sinus infection sufferers
“This study was designed to help determine how great a risk antibiotic resistance was among chronic sinus patients to determine if there is a need to re-evaluate how we diagnose…
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Study finds that blacks are significantly less likely to undergo prostate cancer screening
In a study involving more than 67,000 men age 65 years and older, the researchers found that blacks were 35 percent less likely than whites to undergo prostate-specific antigen (PSA)…
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Study says therapy better than pills in treating sleep-onset insomnia
The findings show non-drug techniques yield better short- and long-term results than the most widely prescribed sleeping pill, zolpidem, commonly known as Ambien. “Sleeping pills are the most frequent treatment…
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Walking improves cognitive functions in older women
In a study, elderly women who engaged in the most activity — for example, walking at least 6 hours per week — had a 20 percent decrease in risk of…
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Mechanism helps describe how airways respond to constriction
In asthma, substances such as allergens irritate the airways and cause the smooth muscle cells around them to contract. With repeated attacks, lung tissues become damaged from cycles of inflammation…
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The tale of the tail
Sharks’ tails have always mystified biologists. Their relatives, hundreds of different species of fish, happily push themselves through the water with symmetrical tails that move from side to side. But…
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Study finds leptin plays a key role in women’s health
Senior author Christos Mantzoros, M.D., director of the Human Nutrition Research Unit and clinical research overseer of the Department of Endocrinology at BIDMC and associate professor of medicine at Harvard…
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Surprising variations discovered in human genomes
Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Toronto in Canada looked at 55 healthy, unrelated men and women, and they discovered 255 regions with relatively large gains or…
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Images reveal how leading cause of severe childhood diarrhea enters cells
The work illustrates how vaccine development can advance by probing the physical architecture of viruses and finding the parts needed to prime the immune system. Rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea…
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Drug-coated stents don’t save money but are reasonably cost-effective, study shows
Treatment with the Cypher sirolimus-coated stent, developed by Johnson & Johnson’s Cordis division, cost approximately $2,900 more per patient compared to the use of bare metal stents. The drug is…
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Which comes first, language or thought?
“Infants are born with a language-independent system for thinking about objects,” says Elizabeth Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard. “These concepts give meaning to the words they learn later.”…
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Study yields insights into precancerous condition
Caused by a mutation that inactivates the tumor suppressor gene LKB1, PJS causes gastrointestinal polyps that have a 30 to 50 percent chance of becoming cancerous, says senior author Lewis…
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Stem cell science
“Stem-cell transplants are already performed every day in Harvard-affiliated hospitals — and around the world,” says Harvard Stem Cell Initiative codirector David Scadden, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School…
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Quality of life continues to change long-term after treatment for prostate cancer
Researchers compared outcomes for men who had undergone surgery or radiation in the first study to look at the effects of prostate cancer treatment on quality of life beyond five…
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Newly identified gene linked to brain development
Bilateral frontoparietal polymicrogyria (BFPP) is a recessive genetic disorder resulting in severely abnormal architecture of the brain’s frontal lobes, as well as milder involvement of parietal and posterior parts of…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…