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FRIDAY, April 2, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Illegal drug sales on the dark web are common, hard to detect and are fueling America's opioid epidemic, a University of Texas study reveals.Opioids include prescription painkillers (such as oxycodone) and illegal drugs (such as heroin and fentanyl)."People are struggling from the effects of addiction," said Tiffany Champagne-Langabeer, senior author of a new investigation of illegal drug sales. "This study shines a light on the sophisticated methods of how the supply of opioids is coming into this country."Accidental opioid overdoses cause more deaths in the United States than traffic accidents and suicides, she noted in a university news release.Champagne-Langabeer is an assistant professor of health informatics at the University of Texas...

FRIDAY, April 2, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Heart disease is gaining on cancer as the leading cause of death among American women under 65."Young women in the United States are becoming less healthy, which is now reversing prior improvements seen in heart disease deaths for the gender," said Dr. Erin Michos, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. She's the co-author of a new study that investigated causes of premature death for U.S. women.For the study, her team analyzed U.S. death certificates between 1999 and 2018 found that cancer was the most common cause of early death in women.But the annual percentage change (APC) in death rates for cancer declined year after year, as it increased for heart disease between 2010 and 2018 in two groups —...

THURSDAY, April 1, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Cataracts are a threat to the vision of millions, but new study suggests a welcome aid to prevention: wine.A few glasses of alcohol -- especially red wine -- a week may help reduce your risk of cataract surgery, new British research suggests. "The fact that our findings were particularly evident in wine drinkers may suggest a protective role of polyphenol antioxidants, which are especially abundant in red wine," said study lead author Sharon Chua, a researcher from University College London Institute of Ophthalmology. Her team noted that grape skin is abundant in with healthy antioxidants, an antioxidant-like compound known as resveratrol, and other heathy chemicals called flavonoids.Too much alcohol -- a drink a day or more -- wasn't great...

THURSDAY, April 1, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- More than one-quarter of U.S. parents don't plan to vaccinate their kids for COVID-19, and roughly as many oppose school-required coronavirus shots, a new study finds.This opposition was more common among moms than dads, and was especially common among white mothers who identified as Republican/Republican-leaning, the researchers said."Women tend to serve as family health managers within the family so they are generally more likely than men to follow expert medical recommendations for avoiding health risks," said study co-author Jessica Calarco. She is a professor of sociology at Indiana University Bloomington. "However, with the onslaught of misinformation around the coronavirus, the pressure women face to control risks may be leading them...