Latest Health News

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- People who develop Parkinson's disease at a younger age (before age 50) may have malfunctioning brain cells at birth, according to a study that also identified a drug that may help these patients. At least 500,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Parkinson's each year. Most are 60 or older at diagnosis, but about 10% are between 21 and 50. Parkinson's is a neurological disease that occurs when brain neurons that make dopamine become impaired or die. Dopamine helps coordinate muscle movement. Symptoms get worse over time and include slow gait, rigidity, tremors and loss of balance. There is currently no cure. "Young-onset Parkinson's is especially heartbreaking because it strikes people at the prime of life," said study...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Taking higher doses of vitamin D during pregnancy doesn't appear to offer any protection against asthma in children, a new study finds. The study, a follow-up to one done three years ago, looked at 6-year-old children whose mothers had taken extra vitamin D while they were pregnant. The hope was that taking extra vitamin D when the baby's lungs are developing during pregnancy might prevent asthma. In the earlier study, the vitamin had shown some impact on 3-year-old children. In the current study, the impact was gone. "Lung development begins in utero, and animal studies have shown that vitamin D is important for development," said study lead author Dr. Augusto Litonjua. He's a professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Many older people could improve their vision by getting glasses or a new prescription, a new study suggests. Swedish researchers assessed 1,200 70-year-olds and found that most were content with their eyesight, but many overestimated how well they actually see. The study found that 61.5% could significantly improve their vision by getting glasses or changing the power of the ones they already had, researchers said. "We're really healthy and have good eyesight in Sweden, and being 70 doesn't have to mean your vision is poor," said co-author Lena Havstam Johansson, a doctoral student at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg. "Visual impairment can creep up on you, making it difficult to notice that your eyes are getting worse....

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Teen and young adult cancer survivors are nearly twice as likely to be hospitalized as those who haven't had cancer, a new study finds. "Few studies have investigated health risk in adolescents and young adults after cancer treatment," said study author Chelsea Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Cancer Society. She and her colleagues from the University of Utah and the University of North Carolina analyzed data from 6,330 cancer survivors in Utah between ages 15 and 39; about 13,000 of their siblings, and more than 18,000 unrelated people in the same age group without cancer. The risk of a first hospitalization was 1.8 times higher for cancer survivors than for their siblings and 1.9 times higher than for others without...