Health

Just because death is inevitable doesn’t make it easy or natural to talk about. In a new study, researchers wondered if hospice workers—experts in end-of-life care—had lessons to teach the rest of us when it came to speaking with patients and families about death.Daniel Menchik, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Arizona who studies the use of language in different fields of medicine, spent eight months sitting in on team meetings at a hospice care facility that were also open to patients’ families. His goal was to study how both groups talked to each other about the impending death of the patient. His findings, which will be published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, reinforce the importance of framing death as a process rather than an outcome when carin...

At the height of the pandemic, Meg McNamara’s employer sent her home with symptoms that looked a lot like Covid, but she knew better.A negative Covid test proved that the 37-year-old’s coughs and red eyes were just her usual allergies. Determined to not be wrongly accused again, the New York-based physician’s assistant turned to over-the-counter medication. She started popping Benadryl every morning to mask her symptoms, but that caused other problems.“It was a nasty experience,” said McNamara who often suffered from drowsiness — a side effect of Benadryl. “I’m always tired. For me to have a little bit more fatigue in my life is not acceptable.”As the pandemic has receded, McNamara is emblematic of the dilemma facing Americans. They’re under pressure to show up for work and social gatherin...

Though there are guidelines for when a convicted criminal merits the death penalty (in states that still have capital punishment), ultimately, the jury makes the decision. A new study finds that the facts of the case are not the sole determinant of whether or not a jury will issue a death sentence—based on the research, certain “untrustworthy” facial features appear to play a significant role in capital-punishment sentencing. According to the study, published Dec. 14 in the journal Psychology Science, people associate certain facial features such as down-turned lips and heavy brows with being untrustworthy. It’s one of the earliest forms of stereotype bias humans learn—even babies prefer those without these traits—and scientists have found it affects outcomes such as who we select as leade...

Despite significant strides in research and treatments–from liquid biopsy to vaccines, from precision medicine to CAR T-cell therapy–cancer remains the leading cause of death across the globe, taking some 10 million lives annually. And beyond just the devastating human toll, cancer’s economic burden on patients and their families exceeds $21 billion each year, a number estimated to reach $25 trillion between now and 2050.  Recognizing that there is still much to do if we hope to ever beat this insidious disease, the White House announced recently a $240 million investment in the reinvigorated Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to cut the cancer death rate by half in the next 25 years.   Yet funding and policy, while c...

A new study adds to evidence that severe obesity is becoming more common in young U.S. children. There was some hope that children in a government food program might be bucking a trend in obesity rates — earlier research found rates were dropping a little about a decade ago for those kids. But an update released Monday in the journal Pediatrics the rate bounced back up a bit by 2020. The increase echoes other national data, which suggests around 2.5% of all preschool-aged children were severely obese during the same period. "We were doing well and now we see this upward trend,” said one of the study’s authors, Heidi Blanck of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We are dismayed at seeing these findings.” ...

A new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 is rising to prominence in the U.S. as winter illness season approaches its peak: JN.1, yet another descendent of Omicron. JN.1 was first detected in the U.S. in September but spread slowly at first. In recent weeks, however, it has accounted for a growing percentage of test samples sequenced by labs affiliated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), surpassing 20% during the two-week period ending Dec. 9. By some projections, it will be responsible for at least half of new infections in the U.S. before December ends. Here’s what to know about JN.1. Is JN.1 more infectious or severe than other SARS-CoV-2 variants? JN...

WeightWatchers has been through a lot of changes recently. In 2018 the popular weight loss program changed its name to WW with an updated mission: “Wellness That Works.” For the first time, that mission includes medications. Last spring, the company acquired Sequence, a digital health company, which allowed members to get prescriptions for weight loss drugs. Now the 60-year old company is launching WeightWatchers Clinic, which will give them access to telehealth weight loss management and doctors who can prescribe weight loss medications like semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound). It’s a significant shift for a company that has long focused on behavior-based strategies: making changes in diet and exercise, utilizing a "points" system for tallyin...

The teen birth rate in the U.S. has been declining consistently for more than 30 years, despite the fact that the number of teenage girls having sex has not changed since at least 2002. A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests a key driver of this trend: a dramatic increase in teenage girls using long-lasting and reliable forms of contraception. The percentage of girls ages 15 to 19 using long-acting reversible contraception, which includes intrauterine devices (IUDs) and contraceptive implants, reached a reported high of 19% from 2015-2019. That’s more than three times the rate at which they were used from 2011-2015.  Long-lasting birth control can be up to 20 times as effective as birth contr...

For people with schizophrenia, treatment is an ongoing, life-long process of antipsychotic medications and psychotherapy. Medications are key to controlling episodes, but most have serious enough side effects—including uncontrolled muscle movements, gaining weight and drowsiness—that people skip doses or decide not to take them.In a study published Dec. 14 in the Lancet, researchers report on a promising new treatment for the psychiatric disorder that could give patients better options. KarXT, developed by biotech company Karuna Therapeutics, targets a different brain chemical than most existing schizophrenia treatments and appears to have fewer side effects.The study involved 252 people who were hospitalized with schizophrenia and randomly assigned to receive two capsules of KarXT, or a p...

Statistically, there’s a good chance you know somebody who has experienced Long COVID, the name for chronic symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, and pain following a case of COVID-19. About 14% of U.S. adults report having had Long COVID at some point, according to federal data.But many people don’t realize that other viruses, even very common ones, can trigger similarly long-lasting and debilitating symptoms. A study published Dec. 14 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases focuses on the risk of developing "Long flu" after a severe case of influenza.“We learned from COVID-19 that infections that are initially thought to cause only acute illnesses can cause chronic disease,” says co-author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System...