Health

It’s uncomfortable to talk about older adults and driving, a fact that many families who’ve worried about a loved one’s dwindling eyesight, reaction time, or cognition behind the wheel are well aware of. The ability to drive isn’t a right, but in many parts of the U.S. it’s become a necessity, the only way to access the world outside the home. When an older adult’s freedom threatens their safety, who gets to make the choice to take a car or license away?For a long time, the answer has been an unsure combination of the U.S. government, physicians, and family members. But as the population of Americans older than 65 grows at a faster rate than any other age bracket, seniors’ presence on the road is growing as well. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), there were 48 million ...

There's a sense, once a whisper, that's growing louder every day. Glaciers are melting; children are being slaughtered; hatred runs rampant. Sometimes it feels like the world's approaching a nadir. Or like you are.The antidote to any despair might be hope, experts say. It’s one of the most powerful—and essential—human mindsets, and possible to achieve even when it feels out of reach. “Hope is a way of thinking,” says Chan Hellman, a psychologist who’s the founding director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma. “We know it can be taught; we know it can be nurtured. It’s not something you either have or don’t have.”Many people, he notes, don’t fully understand what hope is—and what it isn’t. Being hopeful doesn’t mean engaging in wishful thinking or blind optimism. Rathe...

Alzheimer’s patients now have more options than ever for treating their disease— two drugs are approved to treat the causes of Alzheimer’s, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently considering approving another, which could be available next year. Many researchers are starting to focus on how to get the most out of these treatments: how to identify people who will benefit the most, how long people need to be treated, and how to measure the effect of the drugs. They are also exploring whether these drugs could not only slow, but maybe even prevent some of the more damaging effects of the disease.At the annual Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference in Boston, Eisai and Biogen, makers of the most recently approved drug, lecanemab (Leqembi), as well as Eli Lilly, maker...

The world is entering a new era of vaccines. Following the success of COVID-19 mRNA shots, scientists have a far greater capacity to tailor shots to a virus’s structure, putting a host of new vaccines on the horizon.The most recent arrivals are several new immunizations against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.These shots are welcome since RSV can be dangerous, even deadly, in the very old and very young. But the shots, produced by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, are also expensive, costing about $300 for those directed at adults, and up to $1,000 for one of the shots, a monoclonal antibody rather than a traditional vaccine, intended for babies. Many older vaccines cost pennies.And in part because of the high cost, there is a shortage of RSV shots for infants, leading the U.S. Centers for D...

A phenomenal amount of research on Long COVID—the name for chronic symptoms following a case of COVID-19—has been published over the past three years. But scientific advances have yet to bring relief to people who are already sick, a group estimated to include about 5% of U.S. adults but hard to precisely quantify due to the difficulty of diagnosing people correctly.Researchers are optimistic that breakthroughs are coming. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched multiple clinical trials focused on potential therapies, and several recent studies have pointed to biomarkers that may help doctors accurately diagnose—and, hopefully, treat—people with Long COVID.“In the short history of studying this disease, this is probably the most hopeful moment we’ve ever had,” says Christ...

All parents want the best for their children, so they could be forgiven for thinking that infant nutrition brands prioritize the same. But then there’s toddler formula. Toddler formulas, or toddler milks, are beverages often sold in the same product lines as infant formulas, framed as a sort of natural nutritional continuation for the 9-to-12-month-old being weaned off traditional infant formula or breast milk. Unlike infant formulas, however, toddler milk is unregulated in the U.S., and as a result is not required to meet the same nutritional standards. For years, it’s been an open secret among pediatric health experts that the toddler milk market has run wild with deceptive marketing and less-than-healthy formulations, but with sales growing, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig—and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.Lawrence Faucette was dying from heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant when doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine offered the highly experimental surgery.In the first glimpse of Faucette provided since the Sept. 20 transplant, hospital video shows physical therapist Chris Wells urging him to push through a pedaling exercise to regain his strength.“That’s going to be tough but I’ll work it out,” Faucette, 58, replied, breathing heavily but giving a smile.The Maryland team last year performed the world’s first transplant of a heart from a genetically alter...

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network.Some 13,000 chemicals are associated with plastic production, of which only 7,000 or so have been investigated for their health and environmental impacts. Nearly half of those studied have elements deemed hazardous to human health, but the research—spanning 50 years, multiple languages, thousands of publications, and an alphabet soup’s worth of acronyms, synonyms, and chemical compounds—is difficult to navigate. Yet doing so has become increasingly important as plastic production ramps up, along with its potential for causing serious threats to human health.A new research map brings order to the chaos, indexing the existing research by chemical compound, health outcomes, affected population groups, an...

Setting boundaries at work—in this economy—might seem like a pipe dream. Not be available 24/7? Not smile and accept every new assignment? Not push back when a colleague tries to steal your time?It could be your best career (and mental health) move: Establishing expectations for what you will and will not tolerate is key to increasing productivity and wellbeing, experts agree. “Boundaries are limits or personal rules that protect your time and energy and allow you to perform at your best,” says Melody Wilding, a licensed social worker and author of Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work. “Everyone likes certainty and clarity, and that’s what boundaries provide.”Sticking up for yourself is particularly essential, she adds, when you consider how many ...

Many are aware of the Cancer Moonshot—an ambitious and hopeful initiative of the U.S. government to reduce cancer-related death rates by 50% by the year 2047. It will take an army to achieve this goal, composed of the brightest minds and biggest hearts in healthcare, science, and technology. Many parties will be involved—the federal government, healthcare providers, researchers, patients, caregivers, and advocates, among others in both the public and private sectors. One of the most pivotal tools that can help propel us toward this lofty goal is artificial intelligence (AI), which is poised to revolutionize cancer treatment. The moonshot plan identifies five priority areas, all of which AI has the potential to enhance. Two areas in particular lend themselves to AI: the call to “deliver the...