Featured series 
Tag: Health
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Health
Research links panic and heart attack in older women
New research has linked panic attacks in older women with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and death from all causes, adding panic attacks to the growing list of mental and emotional conditions with potentially deadly physical effects.
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Health
Children forgotten part of AIDS picture
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).
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Health
Harvard researchers find longevity, restricted diet link
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.
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Nation & World
Changes to system and self necessary for health reform
Major changes, including personal and market-based reforms, are needed in order to bring health coverage to every American, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told an audience at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Tuesday (Sept. 25).
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Health
State’s health care plan assessed
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.
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Health
Humanitarian aid professionals strategize
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.
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Campus & Community
Alexander H. Leighton of School of Public Health dies at 99
Professor Alexander H. Leighton, first chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences (now part of the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health) at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), passed away on Aug. 11 at his home in Nova Scotia, Canada. He was 99.
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Health
Stem cells make new heart valves
Researchers have coaxed adult stem cells into forming artificial heart valves that could one day mean fewer surgeries for children suffering from heart defects.
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Science & Tech
Biohybrid of elastic film and muscle cells packs a punch
In an innovative marriage of living cells and a synthetic substrate, bioengineers at Harvard University have found that a rubberlike, elastic film coated with a single layer of cardiac muscle cells can semi-autonomously engage in lifelike gripping, pumping, walking, and swimming.
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Health
Brain implants relieve Alzheimer’s damage
Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
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Health
Man-made medical mystery gets second solution
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…
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Health
Human stem cells help monkeys recover from Parkinson’s
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.
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Health
New science provides compelling framework for early childhood investment
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…
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Health
Broken hearts found to mend themselves
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.
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Science & Tech
Rajan Sonik hopes to cure bodies while energizing hearts and souls
Rajan Sonik arrived at Harvard four years ago aspiring to a career in science or maybe law, but a 14-year-old boy with sickle cell disease Sonik met in his sophomore year through a hospital mentoring program changed everything.
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Health
Red wine, taken in moderation, reduces risk of prostate cancer
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…
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Arts & Culture
Food, sex conference draws SRO crowds
Money. Race. Health. War. That list of potent topics summarizes the first four years of conferences on gender sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. This year’s gender conference (April 12 and 13) added a fifth topic: food, which by some accounts has elements of all the others combined.
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Nation & World
HSPH study shows guns in homes linked to higher rates of suicide
In the first nationally representative study to examine the relationship between survey measures of household firearm ownership and state-level rates of suicide in the United States, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that suicide rates among children, women, and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have…
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Nation & World
Global momentum for smoke-free society
In a perspective article in the April 12 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Association of European Cancer Leagues describe the growing momentum for indoor smoking bans in countries across the globe. They identify Ireland’s pioneering 2004 comprehensive indoor smoking ban…
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Health
Eradicating polio better option than control
Concerns about the high perceived costs of eradicating the relatively low number of polio cases worldwide have led to recent suggestions that it is time to shift from a goal of eradication to control: abandoning eradication and allowing wild poliovirus to continue to circulate, which proponents of control believe can sustain the low number of…
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Campus & Community
Avian flu drill preps for possible scenario
Let’s pretend. The first cases of a deadly new strain of avian influenza appear in Eastern Europe. In a few days, the wave of a building pandemic sweeps westward to London, skips across the Atlantic to New York — then shows up in Boston. Day by day, as the crisis multiplies, when and how does…
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Campus & Community
Spring into health: Wellness classes now online
The Center for Wellness and Health Communication at Harvard University Health Services will offer several sessions and courses this spring ranging from yoga and Reiki to integrating feng shui in the workplace. For a listing of programs and to register, visit http://www.huhs.harvard.edu.
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Health
Finding the start of Alzheimer’s disease
Faces are hard to remember. Even harder are the names that go with them. It’s one of the most common problems people face as they get older.
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Health
Weight gain in pregnancy linked to overweight in kids
Pregnant women who gain excessive or even appropriate weight, according to current guidelines, are four times more likely than women who gain inadequate weight to have a baby who becomes overweight in early childhood. These findings are from a new study at the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and…
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Campus & Community
CHA researchers awarded grant to study depression in minorities
Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), the nonprofit health-care system with strong ties to Harvard and Tufts medical schools, recently announced that its Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research (CMMHR) has received…
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Campus & Community
Health, wellness classes offered
The Center for Wellness and Health Communication at Harvard University Health Services will offer several sessions and courses this spring ranging from yoga and Reiki to integrating feng shui in the workplace.
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Health
High-deductible health plans are linked to fewer ER visits
Patients who switched to high-deductible health plans went to the emergency department 10 percent less than patients who remained in traditional plans, according to a new study by the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care). The study, published in the March 14 Journal of the American…
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Health
Indonesia’s strategies to fight bird flu run afoul of reality
If Indonesia is able to execute a comprehensive bird flu plan written by the government, it will take great strides toward controlling the outbreak in the sprawling island nation, a visiting professor who has studied the region said Friday (March 9). Unfortunately, there’s little chance of that happening.
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Health
Sleep found to repair and reorganize the brain
Most of us do it every night but we don’t know why. If you miss too many nights, it might kill you. We know why we eat, drink, breathe, and move around, but no one can explain why we need to sleep. What does seven or eight hours of snoozing really do for us? Van…
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Campus & Community
Center for Health spoof takes on serious subject
The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School recently launched “The (Bio)DaVersity Code” — a short, Flash-animated spoof of “The Da Vinci Code” that illustrates the importance of biodiversity to the planet’s health. Free Range Graphics, creators of the award-winning “The Meatrix,” produced the short.