Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Science & Tech
Study suggests pacemaker and defibrillator recalls on the rise
As more heart patients receive pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) generators, more recalls are being issued for the devices, according to a study led by a Harvard Medical School instructor…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Science & Tech
Study finds parents of chronically ill children avoid switching to HMOs
The incentive to switch health plans is usually a lower cost to the patient. So if parents of chronically ill children want to retain their old health plans instead of…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
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…
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Health
Breathing new life into asthma therapy
Asthma attacks have lasting effects because the lungs’ most delicate airways can become scarred. This makes future attacks all the worse. Researchers at Harvard Medical School have looked at what…
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Health
Introducing baby to the right bacteria
Developing a symbiotic relationship with the right bacteria is essential for a baby’s health and development. W. Allan Walker, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, has…
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Health
Breast-feeding may limit teenage obesity
Infants who were breast-fed more than formula-fed, or who were breast-fed for longer periods, had approximately 20 percent lower risk of being overweight in their preteen and teen years, according…
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Health
New drug dissolves stomach tumors
Since July 2000, Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researcher George Demetri and his colleagues have treated 148 patients with a rare, lethal stomach cancer known as GIST (Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor).…
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Health
A potential new anthrax therapy
A vaccine to protect humans against anthrax already exists, but since infection is rare, a widespread vaccination program is not practical. To be effective against anthrax, antibiotics must be given…
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Health
Caffeine linked to protection from Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive nervous disease occurring generally after age 50. It destroys brain cells that produce dopamine and is characterized by muscular tremor, slowing of movement, weakness and…
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Health
Medicare rules restrict good care for dying patients
Many health care providers believe that Medicare regulations block them from providing good care to dying patients. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health, and RAND…
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Health
Women’s menstrual cycle holds clue to cocaine response
During the first half of their menstrual cycles, when their estrogen levels are high, women are protected from the brain-damaging effects of cocaine use, according to a research study conducted…