Health

For those of us whose skin in the winter gets as scaly as a lizard’s, home humidifiers might sound essential. But humidifiers are more complicated to use and care for than some other household appliances—and doing so incorrectly can be worse for your health than not having one at all. Here’s what to know before diving in. The benefits of humid airHumidifiers do their best work on the parts of the body you use to breathe. When the air gets colder, the humidity in the environment goes down. Each breath of dry air sucks moisture from your airways, which can leave your nose and throat parched and more prone to irritation. Dryness can lead to issues like nosebleeds, persistent coughs, and discomfort, especially for people with lung diseases like asthma and COPD. “Having a humidifier, particula...

Eating healthier foods, getting more sleep, and reducing stress can all help you live longer. But researchers reporting in the Lancet Public Health say that there’s another healthy habit that we shouldn’t forget: getting an education. Analyzing data from hundreds of studies of people in 59 countries, the scientists studied the relationship between how many years of education people received and mortality. They found that people with more schooling tended to die later than those who had less. Every additional year of education reduced mortality by 2%. That translates to a 34% lower risk of dying early for people who complete high school and college—about 18 total years of schooling—compared to those who don’t. That's about as protective against early death as eating the recommended daily am...

Kathryn Clancy wrote an entire book about menstrual cycles. But even she was surprised by some of the pre-menopausal symptoms she recently began to experience at age 44.“A lot of things that have to do with my uterus, ovaries, and breasts, I have been massively underprepared for as a Ph.D.-level expert in this field,” says Clancy, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “That should tell you how even more underprepared most people are.”Most people who menstruate will experience symptoms including hot flashes, brain fog, and changes to mood, sleep, and sexual function as they approach menopause, defined as the point in time a year after their last period. But that transition, which typically begins between the ages of 45 and 55, is so rarely discussed in society—and at t...

Your immune system may be getting smarter every time you encounter COVID-19, a new study suggests. After getting vaccinated and infected, the immune system generates broader defenses against the virus, including against new variants.In a paper published Jan. 19 in Science Immunology, researchers in South Korea compared immune cells in the lab from people with a variety of vaccine and infection histories throughout the different Omicron waves, which began in late 2021 with BA.1. People who had been vaccinated with the original Pfizer-BioNTech series and then got infected with any Omicron variant showed good levels of memory immune cells—called T cells—that defended not only against the variants causing the infection, but also related ones in the Omicron family that came later. For example, ...

Cameroon will be the first country to routinely give children a new malaria vaccine as the shots are rolled out in Africa.The campaign due to start Monday was described by officials as a milestone in the decades-long effort to curb the mosquito-spread disease on the continent, which accounts for 95% of the world’s malaria deaths.“The vaccination will save lives. It will provide major relief to families and the country’s health system," said Aurelia Nguyen, chief program officer at the Gavi vaccines alliance, which is helping Cameroon secure the shots.The Central Africa nation hopes to vaccinate about 250,000 children this year and next year. Gavi said it is working with 20 other African countries to help them get the vaccine and that those countries will hopefully immunize more than 6 mill...

Aging is inevitable, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to slow it down. And the easier the intervention, the better.In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers report that taking a multivitamin that you can buy at the pharmacy can slow cognitive decline associated with aging by as much as two years.The trial is part of a series led by scientists at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital that compared people 60 years or older taking Centrum Silver to those taking a placebo. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health and Mars Edge—a branch of the food company Mars, Inc.—and Haleon, the maker of Centrum, donated the vitamins. None of the sponsors or funders were involved in the design of the study or analysis of the results.Two p...

January 19, 2024 11:21 AM ESTFederal health officials are expanding a warning about salmonella poisoning tied to charcuterie meat snack trays sold at Sam's Club and Costco stores.At least 47 people in 22 states have been sickened and 10 people have been hospitalized after eating Busseto brand and Fratelli Beretta brand meats, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.The CDC had previously warned about one recalled lot of Busseto brand charcuterie sampler trays, but the agency now advises retailers and consumers not to eat, serve or sell any lots of the foods. They include the Busseto charcuterie sampler sold at Sam's Club and the Fratelli Beretta brand Antipasto Gran Beretta products sold at Costco.The meat trays come in twin packs that include prosciutto...

Organ transplants save lives, but healthy specimens from the right donors are in short supply, which is why scientists are searching for more reliable ways to replace diseased organs that depend less on chance and more on some of the latest scientific advances.Enter pigs, who are bringing hope to the 10,000 people in the U.S. currently waiting for liver transplants. On Jan. 18, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the biotech companies eGenesis and OrganOx announced a major step toward one potential way to address the problem. They hooked up a brain-dead patient to a pig's liver, which circulated the man's blood for three days.“It was amazing to me to see the system working,” says Dr. Abraham Shaked, professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, who oversaw the exper...

With COVID-19 spreading as widely as it is right now, you run the risk of meeting an infected person every time you go into a public place. But every trip to the pharmacy or meal in a restaurant doesn’t lead to a case of COVID-19. So what makes some exposures more harmful than others?The length of time you spend around a person with COVID-19 seems to heavily influence your likelihood of getting sick, according to a recent Nature study that has been peer-reviewed but not fully edited. Most exposures that result in transmission last at least an hour, if not much longer, the researchers say.Previous studies have shown that people who spend long bouts of time with someone who has COVID-19 are at increased risk of getting infected, particularly if the encounter happens in a small, enclosed spac...

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness can be a distressing and disorienting experience. Surveys of people who have chronic diseases have found that many experience a sense of powerlessness, and that they tend to view their condition as more than a threat to their health; it’s also seen as a threat to their psychological well-being, as well as their social and personal identities.All of these experiences may be heightened among people with lupus, a complex autoimmune condition that tends to arise unexpectedly and in relatively young patients. The unpredictable and highly variable course of the disease can contribute to feelings of uncertainty and lack of control. Patients are likely to worry about how their life will change, or whether they’ll be able to pursue long-held ambitions. In many...