Latest Health News

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 8, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- New York City's ban on a certain type of heating oil led to significant reductions in air pollutants that pose a risk to health, new research shows.“It is very encouraging to see the overall success of the Clean Heat Program in reducing pollution levels in the city, and particularly exciting to find that the policy is effective in both low- and high-income neighborhoods,” lead author Mike He said in a Columbia University news release. He did the research as a doctoral student at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.Under the Clean Heat Program, the city banned heating oil #6 in 2016. Till then, three types of heating oil were used in the...

TUESDAY, Dec. 7, 2021 -- Though they live in one of the world’s richest nations, a growing number of young Americans are without ample health insurance.A new study reports that 34% of U.S. kids age 17 and under were "underinsured" in 2019. That means their insurance failed to address their overall health needs or ensure access to preferred providers; that it came with high out-of-pocket costs; or wasn't in effect at all times.And the trend appears to be getting worse, given that 30.6% lacked adequate coverage in 2016. That means there are 2.4 million more at-risk kids whose insurance is not cutting it. And researchers say a large portion of the flimsy coverage is private -- not public -- insurance."Inadequate insurance -- mainly experienced as high out-of-pocket costs -- causes...

TUESDAY, Dec. 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- People who undergo surgery to treat cataracts may have a lower likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.Of more than 3,000 older adults with the eye disease, those who had surgery were about 30% less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the coming years, researchers found.The findings cannot prove cataract surgery helps protect against Alzheimer's, said lead researcher Dr. Cecilia Lee. However, it provides strong evidence that that could be the case. Lee and her colleagues were able to account for numerous other factors that might explain the finding. And even after doing so, cataract surgery was still linked to a reduction in Alzheimer's risk."This evidence might be as good as we can get," said Lee, chair of...

TUESDAY, Nov. 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental hormone therapy pill can effectively stall the progression of breast cancer, even in older patients whose tumors have mutated to make such therapy less effective, new trial results show.The drug elacestrant reduced the risk of breast cancer progression and death by 30% in postmenopausal patients whose cancers were fueled by the female hormone estrogen, compared to people receiving new rounds of other hormone therapies, according to results to be presented Tuesday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.Elacestrant was even more effective in people with cancers that had mutated to make them less vulnerable to hormone therapy, causing a 45% reduction in risk of progression or death compared to standard hormone therapy, the...