Featured series 
Tag: Health
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Nation & World
‘Bicycle Environments’ takes HSPH and GSD students for a ride
At a time when the United States scrambles to resolve the country’s obesity epidemic, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, and lessen dependency on foreign fossil fuels, this semester the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Graduate School of Design (GSD) have launched an interdisciplinary course that tackles all three problems (and…
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Nation & World
Antacid use during pregnancy may increase childhood asthma
Children of mothers who took acid-suppressive drugs during pregnancy had a 1.5 times higher incidence of asthma when compared with children who were not exposed to the drugs in utero, finds a large population-based study by researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston. The findings, accompanied by an editorial, appear online this week in “Early View” in…
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Nation & World
New obesity-related genes identified
A large international consortium has made significant inroads into uncovering the genetic basis of obesity, adding six new genetic variants to the two already linked to higher body mass index (BMI) in previous studies. Most of the newly discovered genes had never before been suspected of having a role in body weight and, curiously, many…
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Nation & World
Robotic radical hysterectomy has advantages
New technologies now allow surgery to be performed with less impact on patient quality of life. As the trend toward minimally invasive surgery grows, robotic-assisted surgery has become an appealing tool for gynecologic oncology surgeons. However, to date, there is little data to confirm the benefits of this technology. New research from Brigham and Women’s…
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Nation & World
HUHS continues to offer flu vaccination clinics
Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) is conducting free vaccination clinics.
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Nation & World
Researchers replicate ALS process in lab dish
A Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) research team has succeeded in deriving spinal motor neurons from human embryonic stem cells, and has then used them to replicate the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) disease process in a laboratory dish.
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Nation & World
Researchers successfully track voyage of single stem cell
The title of the letter in the Dec. 3 edition of the journal Nature — “Live-animal tracking of individual haematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in their niche” — doesn’t begin to describe it, this real-life, real-time view of a single stem cell making its way to its ultimate home inside the bone-marrow cavity of a living mouse.
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Nation & World
Dybul urges partnering with governments, communities to fight AIDS
In honor of World AIDS Day (Dec. 1), Ambassador Mark Dybul, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator who is leading the implementation of the $48 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), spoke Dec. 4 in Sever Hall.
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Nation & World
Rights, AIDS, past and future
Sixty years after the United Nations declared health care a basic human right, the AIDS epidemic highlights how much work remains to be done as the disease rages on among populations with little access to quality care.
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Nation & World
‘The health of poetry’
As a graduate student at Oxford, Gwyneth Lewis wrote her dissertation on 18th century literary forgery. But as a working poet for three decades — and this year as a Radcliffe Fellow — she is as far from that fraud as conceivable.
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Nation & World
HUHS continues to offer flu vaccination clinics
Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) is conducting free vaccination clinics. The clinics are open to the entire Harvard University community every Monday and Tuesday (noon-3 p.m.) at HUHS on the second floor of the Holyoke Center (Monks Library). Students must have their Harvard ID to receive the vaccination. More information on the flu can be…
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Nation & World
Early success highlights need for more progress
Many of the 500,000 African babies born infected with HIV each year won’t live past age 2, a fact made even more appalling by the fact that doctors know how to halt mother-to-child HIV transmission.
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Nation & World
Cutler finds decline in cancer deaths
Improvements in behavior and screening have contributed greatly to the 13 percent decline in cancer mortality since 1990, with better cancer treatments playing a supporting role, according to new research from David Cutler of Harvard University.
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Nation & World
In brief
Money Mondays offer help; Harvard Real Estate Services plans home-buying seminar; Fontainebleau Schools info session in Adams House; Global health workshop, Dec. 3; Holiday gifts for those in need; A musical invitation
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Nation & World
HUHS to offer flu vaccination clinics through November
Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) will conduct free vaccination clinics throughout November. The clinics will be open to the entire Harvard University community every Monday and Tuesday (noon-3 p.m.) at HUHS on the second floor of the Holyoke Center (Monks Library).
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Nation & World
Genetic screening no better than traditional risk factors for predicting type 2 diabetes
Screening for a panel of gene variants associated with the risk for type 2 diabetes can identify adults at risk for the disorder but is not significantly better than assessment based on traditional risk factors such as weight, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.
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Nation & World
Anesthetic causes changes in mouse brains
For the first time researchers have shown that a commonly used anesthetic can produce changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the brains of living mammals, confirming previous laboratory studies. In their Annals of Neurology report, which has received early online release, a team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators shows how administration of the gas…
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Nation & World
In brief
Money Mondays offer help The Office of Human Resources will be offering a special series of “HARVie chats” on banking, benefits, investing, and other financial topics. Harvard staff are invited to visit http://harvie.harvard.edu/chats/upcomingchats.shtml to get information that may help in navigating through the current economic downturn.
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Nation & World
Drug trial shows dramatic reduction in hidden heart disease
A Harvard-led study shows that the risk of heart attack and stroke among subjects with “silent heart disease” — and normal cholesterol levels — can be dramatically reduced by the use of an already widely prescribed class of drugs.
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Nation & World
HUHS to offer flu vaccination clinics through November
Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) will conduct free vaccination clinics throughout November. The clinics will be open to the entire Harvard University community every Monday and Tuesday (noon-3 p.m.) at HUHS on the second floor of the Holyoke Center (Monks Library).
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Nation & World
In survey, patients give some high, some low marks to hospitals
The quality of hospitals across the United States is inconsistent. To address this issue, the federal government and private organizations have begun to publicly report data, such as how well hospitals treat certain conditions. But until now, there has been no data on how patients themselves feel about the care they received. A new study…
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Nation & World
Researchers gain ground in treatment options for disfiguring tumor
A team of researchers led by Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) Dean for Research Bjorn Olsen has discovered a mechanism for the rapid growth seen in infantile hemangioma, the most common childhood tumor.
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Nation & World
Joseph J. Schildkraut
For a period during the late 1950s and 1960s, psychiatry attracted some of the most capable graduates of US medical schools. Intrigued by the conceptual interest of psychoanalytic theory, and the possibility of treatment via the couch, these students chose for residency departments of psychiatry that featured grounding in psychoanalysis. One of these was Joe…
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Nation & World
Gene therapy restores vision to mice with retinal degeneration
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have used gene therapy to restore useful vision to mice with degeneration of the light-sensing retinal rods and cones, a common cause of human blindness. Their report, appearing in the Oct. 14 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the effects of broadly expressing a light-sensitive protein in other…
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Nation & World
Global ‘chump change’ could provide biodiversity protection
Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson said the Earth’s major biological hot spots could be conserved for roughly $50 billion— an amount he termed “chump change” in a world of trillion-dollar financial bailouts.
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Nation & World
‘Death protein’ may lead to drugs that force cancer cells to self-destruct
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a previously undetected trigger point on a naturally occurring “death protein” that helps the body get rid of unwanted or diseased cells. They say it may be possible to exploit the newly found trigger as a target for designer drugs that would treat cancer by forcing malignant cells…
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Nation & World
Genome Project releases data on 10 genetic pioneers
The world moved a step deeper into the DNA age Monday (Oct. 20) as 10 volunteers released their genetic and medical information on the Internet as part of a multiyear effort to make genetic data an everyday part of medical care.
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Nation & World
Ban calls for international efforts
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the United States to combat the “imminent threat” of climate change, both by reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions and by leading the effort to craft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
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Nation & World
Cooper: Doctor-patient relations cause health disparities
In the United States, a black man can expect to die, on average, 10 years earlier than his white counterpart. For black women, that racial gap in life expectancy is five years.