Health

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...

Governments and public health experts around the world are sounding the alarm about the record-high spread of one of the most notorious—and incurable—diseases, which about half the world is at risk of catching: dengue. The mosquito-borne virus has a long history in warm climates but is now also emerging in regions where it had been generally unheard of—such as in Europe and parts of the U.S. By early December, there had already been more than five million dengue infections worldwide this year—a dramatic increase from some 500,000 cases in 2000—recorded across at least 80 countries and territories. More than 5,500 people have died so far in 2023, according to Save the Children. In October, California announced its first case of locally-tra...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to take up a dispute over a medication used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, its first abortion case since it overturned Roe v. Wade last year. The justices will hear appeals from the Biden administration and the maker of the drug mifepristone asking the high court to reverse an appellate ruling that would cut off access to the drug through the mail and impose other restrictions, even in states where abortion remains legal. The restrictions include shortening from the current 10 weeks to seven weeks the time during which mifepristone can be used in pregnancy. The nine justices did not take up a separate appeal from abortion opponents who challenged the Food...

WASHINGTON — When you buy eyedrops at a U.S. store, you might assume you're getting a product made in a clean, well-maintained factory that’s passed muster with health regulators. But repeated recalls involving over-the-counter drops are drawing new attention to just how little U.S. officials know about the conditions at some manufacturing plants on the other side of the world—and the limited tools they have to intervene when there's a problem. The Food and Drug Administration is asking Congress for new powers, including the ability to mandate drug recalls and require eyedrop makers to undergo inspections before shipping products to the U.S. But experts say those capabilities will do little without more staff and resources for foreign inspections, which we...

When Evan Ozmat, a Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of Albany, first began counseling undergraduates about HIV and substance abuse, he expected to hear about their health issues. Instead, he heard about problem gambling.“Since the beginning of the project three years ago, students have brought up, unprompted, gambling,” Ozmat says. “We started asking about it in every appointment and everyone has something to say. It’s everywhere.”The majority of the gambling takes place on mobile phones, Ozmat says, largely—although not exclusively—on sports betting apps. Served up to students through ubiquitous ads that offer promises of “free” bets and easy wins, the apps sink their hooks deep into students, leading them to spend their financial aid money, lie to their parents, and ignore t...

Conversion therapy—a practice aimed at changing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity—has been widely discredited and is banned in 22 states and the District of Columbia. But more than 1,300 practitioners still offer conversion therapy in the U.S., according to a new report shared exclusively with TIME.“It is shocking to still see so many different conversion therapy programs across the U.S., because all those programs are fraudulent,” says California Rep. Ted Lieu, who in June introduced a bill to ban conversion therapy at the federal level. “There is no scientific or medical basis for conversion therapy. It is a huge scam.”The new report comes from the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that aims to prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth. Lead author Casey Pick, director of law and policy ...

Don’t stress about turning down that holiday party invitation. A new study suggests your host won’t care as much as you think.The research, published Dec. 11 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, finds that people tend to overestimate the negative ramifications of declining social plans, assuming that saying no will upset the person who invited them and damage the relationship. But in a series of experiments, the researchers found that hosts just weren’t that bothered when people declined invites—certainly less than their invitees expected.Some study participants played the role of host, while others played the role of invitee. The inviters were told to imagine they’d asked a friend out for a fun activity, like seeing a museum exhibition or attending a dinner prepared by a c...

As a new generation of highly effective weight loss drugs hits the market, doctors are still trying to figure out how long people will need to take them for the best results.A new study offers a clue. Writing in JAMA, researchers report on what happens when people stop taking the weight loss drug tirzepatide, known as Zepbound. Tirzepatide can help people lose double digit percentages of their body weight, compared to single digit percentages with diet and exercise. The study, sponsored by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, included 670 people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, or with a BMI of at least 27 and one weight-related health complication other than diabetes. Everyone took tirzepatide for nine months, and then were randomly and blindly assigned to continue taking the ...

It was only 11 years ago that scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier first described a new way to edit genes, called CRISPR, in a scientific paper. The discovery is so game-changing that the pair earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for how it could transform the way genetic diseases are treated. Now, on Dec. 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the very first treatment in the country based on the technology. In the medical world, that’s lightning speed. “It’s incredible,” says Doudna, professor of chemistry and molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s so exciting to see how fast, and frankly how safely and effectively, this therapy is being rolled out in humans.”The U.K. had already approved the CRISPR treatment, ...

Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion investing in the research and development of new technologies, with pharmaceutical companies being among the chief beneficiaries of this research. These public-private partnerships have led to some of the most important pharmaceutical developments of our time, including the COVID-19 vaccine. But with that partnership, however, there comes a catch. According to the Bayh–Dole Act, if a business organization takes funding from the federal government in order to develop a new product, the U.S. government has the right to “march in” and control who licenses the product. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, this means that the government can give the license to manufacture a patent-protected drug to a generic company, significantly brin...