Latest Health News

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 9, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- COVID-19 may be behind a concerning rise in the number of women suffering anxiety and depression before and soon after childbirth, a new study says. Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston surveyed more than 1,100 pregnant and postpartum women between May 21 and Aug. 17. They found that 36%, or more than 1 in 3, had significant levels of depression. Prior to the pandemic, rates of perinatal depression were about 15% to 20%.More than 1 in 5 women reported significant levels of generalized anxiety. About 1 in 10 had post-traumatic stress disorder above the clinical threshold."We know the perinatal period is already a time in which women are particularly vulnerable to mental health concerns," said study author Cindy Liu, of the...

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Beat-heavy rap music could help beat mental illness: Over the past two decades, the lyrics of the most popular songs in rap have increasingly hit on issues related to anxiety, depression and mental health, a new study reveals."I think anyone who's been a fan of rap music across the last two decades -- myself included -- had a feeling this was happening," said study author Alex Kresovich, a doctoral fellow in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And it makes sense, he added, given that "the suicide rate among young people in the United States went up 60% from 2007 to 2018."Indeed, rap songs referring to suicide shot up from zero in 1998 to 12% by 2018. In the same time frame, references...

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Children with tough-to-treat epilepsy now have another choice to help them live a life free of seizures, a new study suggests. MRI-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy, a minimally invasive procedure for kids who have drug-resistant epilepsy, is successful in more than half of all cases and has a short recovery time, researchers report. To arrive at that conclusion, the investigators studied the outcomes of children in the United States and Canada who had the laser therapy since 2013, comparing it to surgery, which is another treatment option. "It's a relatively new procedure, both in Canada and in the U.S. As it currently stands, there's not much literature in terms of the outcomes and the complications of this procedure," explained study...

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, new data from late-stage trials shows.Overall, the vaccine protected against symptomatic disease in 70% of cases, according to a team led by researchers from Oxford University in England. Among study volunteers who got a half dose and then a full dose, the rate was 90%, while the rate was 62% in those given two full doses. "Our findings indicate that our vaccine's efficacy exceeds the thresholds set by health authorities and may have a potential public health impact," said Oxford's Andrew Pollard, the lead author on the study.The interim findings are from phase 3 trials in the United Kingdom and Brazil that included more than 11,600 participants. Most of them (82%) were between the ages of...