Latest Health News

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The relationship between humans and man's best friend is an enduring one. New research suggests that not only did dog domestication likely happen sometime before 23,000 years ago, but the first people to enter the Americas more than 15,000 years ago probably brought their dogs with them. "When and where have long been questions in dog domestication research, but here we also explored the how and why, which have often been overlooked," said lead author and archaeologist Dr. Angela Perri, from the department of archaeology at Durham University in England.For the study, an international team of researchers led by Perri looked at the archaeological and genetic records of ancient people and dogs.Dog domestication likely took place in Siberia...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- New research reveals why Black Americans might be more vulnerable to colon cancer than white people are.The researchers examined age-related "epigenetic" changes in colon tissue. These changes affect how genes work.The investigators found that in both Black and white people, one side of the colon ages biologically faster than the other. But the side that ages faster is different, depending on race.In Black Americans, the right side of the colon ages much faster than the left side, which could contribute to their increased colon cancer risk, make them more likely to develop cancer on the right side of the colon, and to have the cancer at a younger age, according to the authors of the study published recently in the Journal of the National...

TUESDAY, Jan. 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- According to 2018 data, one in five people in the United States probably carries a sexually transmitted infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.On any given day in 2018, nearly 68 million people had a sexually transmitted disease, according to the new CDC report. There were 26 million new cases that year. The agency refers to these diseases -- such as HIV, syphilis and gonorrhea -- as sexually transmitted infections, or STIs.Nearly half of newly acquired STIs occurred in people aged 15 to 24 years, and new cases in 2018 would result in nearly $16 billion in direct medical costs, the report said.People with STIs don't always have symptoms. Left untreated, some STIs can increase the risk of HIV infection or cause...

TUESDAY, Jan. 26, 2021 (American Heart Association News) -- People who reverse their prediabetes may lower the risk of heart attack, stroke and death, a new study suggests.With prediabetes, a person has blood sugar levels that are higher than normal but lower than the threshold for a diabetes diagnosis. Even so, people with prediabetes are more likely to have a heart attack or stroke, studies have found.Prediabetes can be reversed, and smaller studies suggest doing so lowers the risk of developing heart disease. But the authors of the new work, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, said little research has explored whether reversing prediabetes offers protection.It's an important issue: According to the latest federal data from 2016, a third of U.S. adults...