Health

Sunscreen is a $10 billion business, with a seemingly endless array of products available for sale. Walk into your local drugstore and you’ll find chemical and mineral formulas in virtually every SPF count and format imaginable, from creams to sprays to sticks. So which one should you throw in your beach bag this summer? Here’s how to choose the right sunscreen, according to dermatologists.What’s the difference between chemical and mineral sunscreens?There are two major types of sunscreen: chemical and mineral (also known as physical) formulas. They serve the same purpose—preventing sunburns and other skin damage from the sun’s UV radiation—but they do so in different ways. Sunscreens made from the minerals titanium dioxide and zinc oxide create a physical barrier atop the skin that reflec...

More than 321,000 children in the U.S. lost a parent to a drug overdose from 2011 to 2021, an alarming figure that shows the nation’s obligation to “comprehensively address the needs of individuals, families and communities” when tackling the growing overdose crisis, experts say.A new study published Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry found that the rate of children who lost a parent to an overdose more than doubled in that decade span, jumping from 27 to 63 children per 100,000. In total, the study estimates that 321,566 children in the U.S. lost a parent to a drug overdose in that time span. And while the rates of loss increased consistently each year across all demographics examined in the study, people of color were disproportionately affected by this trend.The highest nu...

(NEW YORK) — All dogs coming into the U.S. from other countries must be at least 6 months old and microchipped to help prevent the spread of rabies, according to new government rules published Wednesday.The new rules require vaccination for dogs that have been in countries where rabies is common. The update applies to dogs brought in by breeders or rescue groups as well as pets traveling with their U.S. owners.“This new regulation is going to address the current challenges that we’re facing,” said Emily Pieracci, a rabies expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was involved in drafting the updated regulations.The CDC posted the new rules in the federal register on Wednesday. They take effect Aug. 1 when a temporary 2021 order expires. That order suspended bringing in d...

Dr. Jesanna Cooper cried when she heard that the labor and delivery unit at Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala., would close in October 2023. She’d started delivering babies at the hospital in 2013, and had helped make it one of the best maternity care centers in the U.S., a huge accomplishment in a state with one of the highest rates of maternal mortality.   Princeton Baptist is located in a low-income part of Birmingham where birthing mothers often had serious complications. But Cooper and her partners in private practice worked with the hospital to bring in midwives, reduce the number of C-sections, and lower the amount of obstetric trauma women experienced. "We realized that we could really change an entire community's health trajectory," she says. Yet Cooper left the ...

I’ve spent my whole life happily walking in one direction: forward. It was, I believed, the only way to go, so I dutifully logged dozens of miles a month looking like every other person out for a morning stroll.No more. Thanks to TikTok, I discovered a new (to me, at least) spin on walking: backward walking, also known as “retro-walking.” Though it’s trending on social-media platforms right now, physical therapists and fitness trainers have been touting its benefits for years. It’s a low-impact way to burn calories, strengthen your legs, test your coordination, and even improve pain, experts say—all of which lured me onto my quiet, rural street one afternoon to give it a whirl.After about 50 steps, I realized going in reverse was no walk in the park. It burned. I could feel the switch-up i...

Current Miss USA Noelia Voigt announced Monday that she was stepping down from the role to focus on her mental health.Voigt, who represented Utah and became the first Venezuelan-American to be crowned Miss USA in Sept. 2023, announced the “very tough decision to resign” in an Instagram post.“I realize this may come as a large shock to many,” Voigt, 24, said in the caption of her post. “Never compromise your physical and mental well-being. Our health is our wealth. A million thank you’s to all of you for your constant and unwavering support. Time to write the next chapter.”In her post, Voigt reflected on her favorite moments during her time as Miss USA, including working with the world’s largest cleft-focused organization Smile Train and being an advocate for anti-bullying, dating violence ...

With a limited amount of allotted time and a pressing health matter to discuss, a trip to the doctor’s office can sometimes feel like a high-stakes event. Even the most routine visits can leave you feeling dissatisfied if there’s a communication barrier, too many items on the agenda, or a personality clash.Research shows that people who are able to vocalize their medical needs tend to be happier with their health care experiences and are even more likely to see improvements in symptoms and other important outcomes. So how can patients become better advocates for themselves and help take charge of their health in the process? We asked physicians for their best tips and strategic advice to help ensure your next doctor’s appointment goes as smoothly as possible.Write down your concerns before...

In the pharmaceutical world, where ideas far outnumber marketable products, executives adhere to the motto of “fail often, and fail early,” with the understanding that to do so requires the discipline to know when to cut their losses and say no. But Ivan Cheung followed other advice as CEO of Eisai, Inc. “The opposite is also true,” he says. “You have to have the discipline to say yes when everybody is trying to tell you to say no.”Cheung took a big risk in 2019 when he decided to continue developing lecanemab—which became the second treatment approved to address the root causes of Alzheimer’s disease—when data from aducanumab, which works in a similar way, showed conflicting results and experts questioned the approach. But Cheung’s team showed him promising early results on their drug, an...

The U.K.-based nonprofit Medical Aid for Palestinians was founded 40 years ago to improve health care for all Palestinian people. So when war between Israel and Hamas broke out in the fall of 2023, CEO Melanie Ward knew her group would need to respond. “This is what the organization was built for,” she says.Ward and her team started working immediately following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, arranging for Medical Aid for Palestinians’ warehouses in Gaza to begin distributing more than $500,000 worth of medical supplies over the next two days in anticipation of an Israeli response. Since then, the group has provided food, hygiene kits, blankets, mattresses, and around $7 million in medical supplies to people in Gaza. It has also sent six teams of international health care workers into Gaz...

Newly powerful weight-loss drugs became the biggest story in health in the past year—and Dr. Jens Juul Holst, Dr. Joel Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, and Dr. Daniel Drucker played pivotal roles in making those medications possible. The scientists conducted the early work, beginning in the 1970s, on glucagon-like peptides, or GLPs, that first transformed the treatment of diabetes and now that of obesity. As with many groundbreaking medical developments, it was a group effort. Holst, at the University of Copenhagen (where he’s now professor of endocrinology and metabolism), noticed that after intestinal surgery, patients’ levels of insulin soared while their blood-sugar levels dropped; he attributed the changes to several gut-related hormones, including glucagon, which is made in the pancreas. Ar...