Latest Health News

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Teaching parents how to talk to their babies could help boost their children's language development, researchers say. The University of Washington study didn't look at so-called baby talk, which typically consists of silly sounds and nonsense words. Instead, the researchers focused on what's called parentese. This is proper speech with elongated vowels and exaggerated tones of voice that attract babies' attention and encourage them to respond. "We've known for some time that the use of parentese is associated with improved language outcomes. But we didn't know why," said Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. "We believe parentese makes language learning easier because of its simpler linguistic...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- A new discovery could lead to better treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other autoimmune diseases, such as psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, researchers report. MS occurs when immune cells get into the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord), causing nerve damage that results in neurological problems. However, the cause is unclear. Studies in a mouse model of MS -- called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) -- have shown that immune T-cells, which secrete an immune molecule called IL-17, damage the myelin sheath surrounding nerves in the central nervous system (CNS). Drugs that block IL-17 have shown promise in early clinical trials for treatment of relapsing-remitting MS. The drugs have already been...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Burns on the face, arms and hands that require skin grafts. Acne boils and ugly rashes. Black hairy tongue and other oral lesions. These are some of the ways that vaping can do serious damage to someone's skin, a new evidence review shows. For example, an estimated 2,035 people with electronic cigarette burn injuries were treated in U.S. emergency rooms between 2015 and 2017, more than 40 times the number of vaping burns reported between 2009 and 2015, researchers found. Faulty or malfunctioning e-cigarettes can overheat and either explode or burn to the touch, said senior study author Dr. Kurt Ashack, a dermatology resident with the University of Illinois at Chicago. "It could cause a pretty significant burn, where you lose at least the...

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) --While health experts worry that the coronavirus outbreak in China could become a pandemic as infections surpassed 24,500 worldwide, U.S. officials said Tuesday night that another round of evacuations of Americans from China was underway. The U.S. State Department said that two planes with Americans on board had left Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, and were on the way to the United States, CNN reported. These are the second and third such flights from Wuhan since the outbreak began. The three flights have ferried more than 500 Americans in total, CNN reported. The planes that left Wuhan Tuesday are expected to land Wednesday at two California military bases: Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, and Travis Air Force...