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WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Wildfires that have been spreading throughout Canada in recent weeks are now spewing tons of smoke southward into the United States.The smoke was so thick on Tuesday that New York City's skyline could not be seen clearly and air quality alerts were issued to residents from parts of the Northeast to the southern Mid-Atlantic region. New York officials issued an air quality alert for much of the state on Wednesday."Exposure can cause short-term health effects such as irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and shortness of breath," the alert warned. "Exposure to elevated levels of fine particulate matter [PM 2.5] can also worsen medical conditions such as asthma and heart disease. People with heart or breathing...

WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Folks who are loaded down with medical debt are less likely to survive a bout of cancer, a new study reports.Researchers found that U.S. counties where more residents have medical debt in collections also had more cancer deaths, compared to counties with less medical debt.“This association was seen for all cancers combined, and the five major cancer types: lung, colorectal, pancreas, prostate for men, and breast for women,” said senior researcher Xuesong Han, scientific director of health services research for the American Cancer Society.Han presented this research Tuesday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting, in Chicago. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in...

WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- For years, doctors have thought that a more extensive surgery that removes a wider swath of lymph nodes was the best option for certain patients with bladder cancer. Now, a new clinical trial is upending that belief. Researchers found that the strategy — known as extended lymphadenectomy — was no better than standard surgery at prolonging patients' lives or the amount of time they lived free of a bladder cancer recurrence. What's more, it increased their risk of complications like blood clots, serious infections and death within 90 days of surgery.Experts said the long-awaited results, from a clinical trial begun over a decade ago, will likely change many surgeons' practice.At the center of the issue are patients with muscle-invasive...

WEDNESDAY, June 7, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- One of the signature symptoms of COVID-19 infection in the early months of the pandemic was a loss of the sense of smell. Now, new research finds that is no longer the case, thanks to the new variants that have been circulating more recently.The risk of losing sense of taste or smell is now only about 6% to 7% of what it was during the pandemic’s early stages, according to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Medicine in Richmond, Va. “At the beginning of the pandemic, smell and taste loss were considered common symptoms of COVID-19. Before viral tests were readily accessible, we relied a lot more on such symptoms to diagnose those infected. However, as different variants of the COVID-19 virus have emerged, the...