Latest Health News

19Dec
2022

Many U.S. Women Must Travel Far to Get Mammograms

Many U.S. Women Must Travel Far to Get MammogramsMONDAY, Dec. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Many American women have to travel long distances to reach the nearest mammography center, a new study finds -- raising questions about whether that keeps some from receiving breast cancer screening.Researchers found that 8.2 million women had limited access to mammography screening in 2022 -- defined as living more than a 20-minute drive to the nearest facility. That was up from 7.5 million in 2006.Not surprisingly, women in rural areas were most affected: In rural regions of 28 states, more than half of women had limited mammography access due to where they lived.While 20 minutes might not sound like a long drive, that was the minimum. In some places, it was closer to 45 minutes to an hour, according to researcher Daniel Wiese, a senior...

'Holiday Heart':  Heart Attacks Spike in Last 2 Weeks...

19 December 2022
`Holiday Heart`:  Heart Attacks Spike in Last 2 Weeks of DecemberMONDAY, Dec. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The holiday season is filled with to-do lists, but one should rise to the top: Take care of your heart.Whether from stress, cold weather or falling out of good habits in terms of eating, sleeping and drinking, heart attack rates spike as much as 40% between Christmas and New Year’s, according to cardiologist Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones. He is chairman of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago.“When we look across the year in terms of heart attack rates, what we see is fairly constant rates week by week with two exceptions: One is that there’s a broad, shallow dip in summer months and, two, there is a very short spike of about 30% to 40% in the last couple weeks of the year between Christmas and...

Vitamin D May Help Maintain Muscle as You Age

19 December 2022
Vitamin D May Help Maintain Muscle as You AgeMONDAY, Dec. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- One way to maintain muscle strength with age: Get enough vitamin D.Researchers in Brazil and the United Kingdom found that older folks who were deficient in the vitamin increased their risk of losing muscle strength by 78%."Vitamin D is known to participate in various functions. …," said study co-author Tiago da Silva Alexandre, a professor of gerontology at Federal University of São Carlos. "Its many roles include helping to repair muscles and releasing calcium for muscle contraction kinetics. It was therefore expected to cause muscle alterations of some kind," he said in a news release from the São Paulo Research Foundation, which supported the research.And that's exactly what this study proved, Alexandre said. For the study, researchers...

Race Could Affect Outcomes in Head-and-Neck Cancers

19 December 2022
Race Could Affect Outcomes in Head-and-Neck CancersMONDAY, Dec. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Black patients with head-and-neck cancers have twice the death rates of white patients, and a new study suggests race itself underlies those differences.“What is unique about our study is it strongly supports the conclusion that Black patients seem to respond to therapy differently than white patients,” said study author Dr. Jeffrey Liu. He is an associate professor in the division of head and neck surgery at Fox Chase Cancer Center and the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, in Philadelphia.Past research has found that factors such as economic status and access to health care also contribute to these issues.For this study, the researchers used data from a clinical trial by the nonprofit Radiation Therapy Oncology Group....

Final Exams Don't Have to Be High Stress for Your Teen

18 December 2022
Final Exams Don`t Have to Be High Stress for Your TeenSUNDAY, Dec. 18, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Final exams are stressful for students, but it is possible to ratchet down the pressure with some planning and self-compassion.A psychologist from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston offers a few suggestions for helping teens manage the pressure. Start with the basics, including making sure the teen is getting sufficient sleep, eating nutritiously without skipping meals and maintaining a reasonable level of physical activity.“A lot of people end up thinking they need to spend more time studying or don’t have time for exercise or meals, but it ends up turning into a vicious cycle of not taking care of yourself, which contributes to worse future performance,” said Dr. Eric Storch. He is vice chair of psychology in the Menninger Department...

Combo of COVID Plus Flu Can Bring Severe Illness to Kids

16 December 2022
Combo of COVID Plus Flu Can Bring Severe Illness to KidsFRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Kids who get the flu and COVID-19 together may be in for a serious, even deadly, bout of illness, U.S. health officials said Friday.So far, infections with both viruses in children have been rare because last flu season was mild, but this one could see dramatic uptick in coinfections, according to a New York City-based expert. Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, said this flu season is shaping up to be a severe one, and COVID is also surging."This is a bad flu season and COVID is coming back," Siegel said. "We shouldn't assume that someone who has the flu doesn't have COVID -- they might have both, so testing for both makes sense. This is a reminder for emergency room physicians that if you diagnose...

AHA News: Why a Sportswriter's Sudden Death Should Lead You to Ask About Your Own Family History

16 December 2022
AHA News: Why a Sportswriter`s Sudden Death Should Lead You to Ask About Your Own Family HistoryFRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2022 (American Heart Association News) -- The sudden death of celebrated sportswriter Grant Wahl at a World Cup match in Qatar last week shocked those who knew him – and of him. He had just turned 49 and seemed healthy, aside from recent complaints about chest pressure, which he attributed to exhaustion and bronchitis.On Wednesday, Wahl's family said he'd died from the rupture of an undetected ascending aortic aneurysm. "No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him," his wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, said in an online post.The condition is rare but not unheard of, said Dr. Eric Isselbacher, director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab and co-director of the Thoracic Aortic Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. An aortic tear killed actors John Ritter...

AHA News: He Used to Hike Mountains. A Stroke Left Him Learning to Walk Again.

16 December 2022
AHA News: He Used to Hike Mountains. A Stroke Left Him Learning to Walk Again.FRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2022 (American Heart Association News) -- Richard Samuelian recently got back from a hike in Yosemite National Park.A few years ago, the 52-year-old couldn't walk down the hallway of his home in Fresno, California, without help.Richard was watching television one day when he noticed he was having trouble seeing the screen. He started to see double and felt queasy. He got up and tried to walk down the hallway but couldn't keep his balance for a single step.He thought he had food poisoning – or vertigo – so he didn't immediately seek medical help. Days later, he was still feeling terrible, so he decided to visit his doctor. At first, his doctor agreed that he probably had vertigo, but advised Richard to get an MRI, just in case.The MRI revealed a stroke. So began a...

More Than a Third of U.S. Parents Now Oppose Routine...

FRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The pandemic's focus on vaccines may have had a big downside: While kids have long been required to get certain shots to attend public school, a growing...

Light Therapy Might Ease MS-Related Fatigue

FRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Extreme fatigue often tops the list of the most distressing symptoms for millions of people who live with multiple sclerosis (MS).And now, a new study...
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