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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- In today's highly polarized political environment, is it possible to stay up-to-date with the news of the day without getting totally stressed out?If not, is there a way to limit the emotional and physical fallout? Or is all that individual stress in service of a greater societal good?New research paints a complex picture with no easy answers.On the one hand, paying close attention to the daily doings of politicians does appear to have a way of making people feel consistently bad, investigators found. And those negative emotions appear to take a toll, they warn, in the form of poorer mental and physical health.On the upside, the study also found that staying politically informed appears to serve a larger good, motivating people to get more...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- While appendicitis is a common emergency, Black people experiencing its symptoms more often have a delayed diagnosis.But that doesn’t happen in lower-quality hospitals that serve more Black patients, according to new research. There, Black people are diagnosed more quickly.“There is clearly a benefit to patients being treated in predominantly minority-serving hospitals when they are having symptoms of appendicitis,” said senior author Dr. Anne Stey. She is a surgeon and assistant professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago.Symptoms of appendicitis include sudden pain that begins on the right side of the lower abdomen; pain that worsens if you cough, walk or make other jarring movements;...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- While childhood obesity gets a lot of attention, some kids struggle with the opposite issue — they have trouble gaining weight.So, how can parents know if their child is “too skinny?”While the best resource is likely a child’s pediatrician, experts have also weighed in on the topic.“Underlying health conditions can result in children and adolescents being underweight. Additionally, underweight can indicate malnutrition,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in a recent study about the prevalence of underweight kids in the United States.Just over 4% of children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 were underweight in the United States in 2018, according to the study.To help figure out if your child is too skinny,...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18, 2023 (American Heart Association News) -- As a child life specialist in the emergency room of a children's hospital, Christi Eberhardt spent a Wednesday morning getting kids comfortable with their upcoming procedures. She showed them IVs and other surgical equipment.Around midday, Eberhardt, who was 29, left the Akron, Ohio, hospital to make a phone call. She collapsed on the bridge connecting the garage to the building. Hospital security saw the fall on camera. They called in a code blue, signaling a medical emergency.A nurse rushed outside to help. She started CPR on Eberhardt, who had gone into cardiac arrest, and yelled for an automated external defibrillator, or AED. Then, several of Eberhardt's co-workers showed up. They didn't recognize her at first. A...