Latest Health News

TUESDAY, Nov. 8, 2022 (American Heart Association News) -- Being physically active in middle age – before having a heart attack – may reduce the risk of having a second heart attack, according to new research.Scientists have long known that regular physical activity helps prevent stroke, heart attacks and other forms of cardiovascular disease. But few studies have explored whether exercise protects against another serious cardiovascular event after an initial heart attack.Researchers looked at data from 1,115 adults in Mississippi, North Carolina, Maryland and Minnesota who had a heart attack sometime between the mid-1990s and the end of 2018. Their average age was 73 at the time of the heart attack.Then the researchers looked at how much study participants said they exercised at...

TUESDAY, Nov. 8, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental drug may help people with Parkinson's disease find relief from constant constipation -- a common and troublesome feature of the disease.In a trial involving 150 people with Parkinson's and chronic constipation, researchers found that patients given the drug for a few weeks became much more regular: On average, they went from fewer than one bowel movement per week, to three per week.The drug, known for now as ENT-01, is not yet approved, and larger studies are planned.But experts said the short-term findings, published Nov. 8 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, are promising.Parkinson's disease affects nearly 1 million people in the United States alone, according to the Parkinson's Foundation.It involves an abnormal buildup of a...

TUESDAY, Nov. 8, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Mindfulness is a centuries-old practice that's become trendy in recent years -- and a new study now says it can help your heart health.Training in mindfulness can help people better manage their high blood pressure by helping them stick to healthy lifestyle changes, a new clinical trial reports.An eight-week customized mindfulness program helped people lower their systolic blood pressure by nearly 6 points during a six-month follow-up period, researchers found.That was significantly better than the 1.4-point reduction that occurred in people undergoing usual blood pressure care, researchers said during a presentation Sunday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, in Chicago. Such research is considered preliminary until published in...

TUESDAY, Nov. 8, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists have used a transplant procedure to apparently cure diabetes in lab mice, without the need for immune-suppressing drugs afterward.The success is a first step in developing a safer way to use cell transplants to possibly cure type 1 diabetes. But that's a long way off, researchers said — and findings in mice often fail to translate to humans.In type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the pancreatic cells that make insulin — a hormone that moves sugars from food into body cells to be used for energy. Without insulin, those cells would starve. So people with type 1 diabetes have to take synthetic insulin every day to live.Even with that treatment, the disease makes it tough to maintain normal blood...