Health

Antidepressant May Protect The Heart Against Mental Stress

editor — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:04:04 +0000

Stress can be a bummer for your heart. And, it seems, antidepressants may help some people with heart disease better weather that stress.

That's the intriguing suggestion from a study that tested how people with heart disease reacted when faced with challenging mental and social tests.

People who were on an antidepressant while dealing with these stressful situations were less likely to have myocardial ischemia, a condition in which the heart gets less blood.

Scientific Tooth Fairies Investigate Neanderthal Breast-Feeding

editor — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:47:00 +0000

When it comes to weaning, humans are weird.

Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, breast-feed their offspring for several years. Some baby orangutans nurse until they are 7 years old.

But modern humans wean much earlier. In preindustrial societies, babies stop nursing after about two years. Which raises the question: How did we get that way?

Can A Piece of Hair Reveal How Much Coke Or Pepsi You Drink?

editor — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:01:00 +0000

One way to know how much soda people drink is to ask them.

The problem?

Bans Of Same-Sex Marriage Can Take A Psychological Toll

Shankar Vedantam — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:03:00 +0000

As the country awaits two important Supreme Court decisions involving state laws on same-sex marriage, a small but consistent body of research suggests that laws that ban gay marriage — or approve it — can affect the mental health of gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans.

Why Is Psychiatry's New Manual So Much Like The Old One?

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:23:00 +0000

The American Psychiatric Association is about to release an updated version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM helps mental health professionals decide who has problems such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.

Psychiatry's new manual, DSM-5, has been nearly 20 years in the making. During that time, scientists have learned a lot about the brain.

A Small Shock To The System May Help Brain With Math

editor — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:14:00 +0000

Stimulating the brain with a very small electrical current through the forehead could boost a student's ability to learn and remember basic mathematics, a provocative experiment suggests.

The work, published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology, could help those who struggle with mental arithmetic.

Eating Much Less Salt May Be Risky In An Over-Salted World

editor — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:33:00 +0000

Americans are repeatedly told to cut back on salt to reduce the risk of heart disease. But there are new questions being raised about the possible risks of reducing sodium too much.

Angelina Jolie And The Rise Of Preventive Mastectomies

editor — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:29:00 +0000
Angelina Jolie just became part of a medical trend: More women are deciding to have their breasts removed to reduce the risk of cancer.
Over the past decade, doctors have noticed a big increase in the number of women choosing prophylactic, or preventive, mastectomies.
Some, like Jolie, have a genetic mutation that makes it much more likely that they will have breast cancer. Her mother died of the disease at age 56. Jolie is 37.

Cases Of Mysterious Valley Fever Rise In American Southwest

Rebecca Plevin — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:02:00 +0000
When she was just 6, Emily Gorospe became very tired and sick. The spunky girl, now 8, developed a fever that wouldn't go away, and red blotches appeared across her body.
"She's got so much energy usually," says Emily's mother, Valerie Gorospe. "Just walking from one part of the house ... she was drained." The little girl was also very pale. "She just didn't look like herself," Valerie recalls.
Emily, who lives in Delano, in California's Central Valley, was eventually diagnosed with valley fever, also known as coccidioidomycosis.

Is It Safe To Use Compost Made From Treated Human Waste?

editor — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:27:00 +0000
Any gardener will tell you that compost is "black gold," essential to cultivating vigorous, flavorful crops. But it always feels like there's never enough, and its weight and bulk make it tough stuff to cart around.
I belong to a community garden in Washington, D.C., that can't get its hands on enough compost. So you can imagine my delight when I learned that the U.S.

Kids With Autism Quick To Detect Motion

editor — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:06:24 +0000
Children with autism see simple movements twice as fast as other children their age, a new study finds.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the University of Rochester were looking to test a common theory about autism which holds that overwhelming sensory stimulation inhibits other brain functions.

How Can Identical Twins Turn Out So Different?

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:34:00 +0000
A study of genetically identical mice is providing some hints about humans.

Wrigley: Maybe We Won't Sell Caffeinated Gum After All

Nancy Shute — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:17:00 +0000
Less than two weeks after launching its Alert Energy Caffeine Gum, the Wrigley Company decided that maybe the world wasn't ready for amped-up chewing gum after all.
On April 30, the day after Alert Energy launched, the Food and Drug Administration said it was going to take a "fresh look" at caffeinated foods, particularly their effect on children and teenagers.
Being out front on caffeinated confections evidently wasn't a comfortable place to be.
Yesterday, the Wrigley Co.

Medicare Pulls Back Curtain On Hospital Bills

editor — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:50:00 +0000
When it comes to health care, the biggest of the big data are all about Medicare.
So, it's kind of a BIG deal when the government releases what individual hospitals charge Medicare — and what they actually get paid — for the most common diagnoses and treatments.
In a first, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made those figures from more than 3,000 hospitals public Wednesday.
A quick spin through the data shows that what hospital

Saving Newborns: 'Kangaroo Care' Could Go A Long Way

Jason Beaubien — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:08:00 +0000
In the developing world, a baby's first day of life is often the most perilous.
Roughly 3 million newborns die each year, the nonprofit Save the Children reported Tuesday.

Why A Slowdown In Health Spending Is Starting To Look Real

Julie Rovner — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:46:00 +0000
So you know all that talk about how the boatload of money going to health care will bankrupt the nation if something isn't done soon?
Well, it turns out that while politicians were bickering, the problem started taking care of itself. Well, a little bit.
While not solved, the growth in health spending has definitely slowed. That's the consensus of a series of studies out in the past few week.

Parents' Saliva On Pacifiers Could Ward Off Baby's Allergies

Rob Stein — Mon, 06 May 2013 07:43:00 +0000
That word "microbiome" — describing the collection of bacteria that live in and on our bodies — keeps popping up. This time, researchers say that children whose parents clean their pacifiers by sucking them might be less likely to develop allergic conditions because of how their parents' saliva changes their microbiomes.
That's the word from a small study of 184 Swedish babies published in this week's issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Girls May Get More 'Teaching Time' From Parents Than Boys Do

Shankar Vedantam — Mon, 06 May 2013 07:40:00 +0000
For some years now, teachers and parents have noted something about boys and girls.

Women's Health Groups Angered By Morning-After Pill Moves

Julie Rovner — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:14:00 +0000
The administration's actions this week on emergency contraception have left many women's health groups sputtering with anger.
But what really has some of the President Obama's usual allies irritated is the fact that the moves are in direct contrast to speeches he made in just the past week.
Recall that on Tuesday the Food and Drug Administration defied a federal judge's order to make the morning-after pill available over-the-counter to women of all ages by approving a mo

How Doctors Would Know If Syrians Were Hit With Nerve Gas

Christopher Joyce — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:43:00 +0000
President Obama affirmed Tuesday that there's evidence Syrians have been attacked with chemical weapons — in particular, nerve gas.
But that's not the same as proof positive.
"We don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them," Obama said.