Health

When Tom Holland, a 54-year-old exercise physiologist, shovels snow at home in Connecticut, someone always starts shouting at him. A neighbor—lots of neighbors, actually—will drive by, roll down the window, and ask: “Really? You’re in shorts?”Holland is, in fact, in shorts, as he is 364 other days of the year. He’s been wearing them in all temperatures since he was a kid—maybe for attention at first, he admits, but now because he runs hot and is simply more comfortable pantsless. He’s in shorts when he walks his two dogs, goes for a run in below-freezing temps, or cleans his at-home outdoor ice rink in the dead of night. He wears them to his kids’ wintertime ice-hockey games—a sharp juxtaposition to his wife, who stays warm with a battery-operated heated vest. Holland almost always forgoes...

WASHINGTON — Women are far more likely than men to get autoimmune diseases, when an out-of-whack immune system attacks their own bodies — and new research may finally explain why.It’s all about how the body handles females’ extra X chromosome, Stanford University researchers reported Thursday — a finding that could lead to better ways to detect a long list of diseases that are hard to diagnose and treat.“This transforms the way we think about this whole process of autoimmunity, especially the male-female bias,” said University of Pennsylvania immunologist E. John Wherry, who wasn’t involved in the study.More than 24 million Americans, by some estimates up to 50 million, have an autoimmune disorder — diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and dozens more. About 4 o...

Those heavy lead aprons may be on their way out at the dentist office, depending on where you live.The nation's largest dental association said Thursday it will no longer recommend the use of lead aprons and thyroid collars on patients who are getting dental X-rays.There are two main reasons for the change. X-ray beams are now more focused, so there is less concern about radiation hitting other parts of the body. Also, the aprons and collars can sometimes block dentists from getting the images they need.The best thing to lower radiation exposure is to make sure the patient needs the X-ray and to do it right the first time, said Dr. Purnima Kumar, who chairs the American Dental Association Council on Scientific Affairs, which released the recommendation.Read More: Robots Created to Help Pat...

January 31, 2024 9:04 AM ESTA collection of eight robots designed by PAL Robotics and trialed by researchers collaborating across multiple universities in Europe and the Middle East have successfully passed the testing phase with patients. The robots, referred to as SPRING (Socially Assistive Robots in Gerontological Healthcare), are designed to provide comfort to elderly patients and alleviate their anxiety, while reducing the burden placed on nursing staff in busy environments. “We believe that the SPRING project marks a significant milestone in the development of interactive robotics, and we are proud of its achievements, while recognising the exciting challenges that lie ahead," Oliver Lemon, a professor of AI and academic co-lead at the National Robotarium stated in a press release.Th...

The latest COVID-19 vaccine offers good protection against the currently dominant strain of the virus, according to a new report in the MMWR, a journal published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It's the first effectiveness data for the updated vaccine, which was released last fall. Using federal and pharmacy-reported data sets, the team of CDC scientists compared people's COVID-19 test results to their self-reported vaccination status collected from September 2023 to mid-January 2024. They found that the new vaccine was about 54% effective at protecting people from symptoms of COVID-19. In other words, the symptoms that prompted people to get tested were less likely to be due to COVID-19 and more likely to be something else among those who were vaccinated a w...

NEW YORK — Military personnel stationed at Camp Lejeune from 1975 to 1985 had at least a 20% higher risk for a number of cancers than those stationed elsewhere, federal health officials said Wednesday in a long-awaited study about the North Carolina base's contaminated drinking water.Federal health officials called the research one the largest ever done in the United States to assess cancer risk by comparing a group who live and worked in a polluted environment to a similar group that did not.The study found military personnel stationed at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune were at higher risk for some types of leukemia and lymphoma and cancers of the lung, breast, throat, esophagus and thyroid. Civilians who worked at the base also were at a higher risk for a shorter list of cancers.The ...

Biogen will stop developing its Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm, a drug once seen as a potential blockbuster before stumbling soon after its launch a couple years ago.The drugmaker said Wednesday that it will end a study of the drug needed for full approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and it will stop sales of Aduhelm.Patients taking doses of Aduhelm available through the commercial market can continue until November. A company representative said there are about 2,500 people worldwide taking Aduhelm.Biogen said it will turn its focus more to other treatments for Alzheimer’s, a fatal, mind-robbing disease. The company also is helping Japanese drugmaker Eisai sell another Alzheimer’s treatment, Leqembi, which already has full FDA approval.Leqembi is the first medicine that’s been c...

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the continent’s chief health advisory body, has tied the worst outbreak of cholera in three years to climate change, saying adverse weather is raising the risk of this disease faster than in the rest of the world.That’s as floods in Democratic Republic of Congo — and across much of southern Africa — stretch already fragile health systems, limit access to safe water and sanitation and force people from their homes.“Cholera in Africa is a climate change issue,” said Jean Kaseya, director general of Addis Ababa-based Africa CDC. Outbreaks of cholera have swept across more than a dozen countries in the region over the past year, causing hundreds of deaths from rural Zambia to the outskirts of the capital of South Africa, the continent’s mo...

If the benefits of physical activity were distilled into a pill, everyone would be on it. Studies show that moving improves nearly every aspect of health: boosting sleep, strength, and mental well-being while slashing the risk of chronic conditions and premature death. What’s more, studies show that exercise has a positive impact even when done in very short chunks and with no equipment or fancy gym membership required.Still, most people don’t exercise nearly enough. According to data published in 2023, less than a third of U.S. adults get the government-recommended amount of physical activity in their free time: at least 20 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic movement (think brisk walking) per day, plus a couple muscle-strengthening sessions (such as resistance training) each week.Why i...

NEW YORK — The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn't abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults.But there's some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade.It's not clear why syphilis rose 9% while gonorrhea dropped 9%, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that it's too soon to know whether a new downward trend is emerging for the latter.They are most focused on syphilis, which is less common than gonorrhea or chlamydia but considered more dangerous. Total cases surpassed 207,000 in 2022, the highest count in the United States since 1950, according to data released Tuesday.And while it continues to have a d...