Latest Health News

FRIDAY, June 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the drug Elevidys, the first gene therapy for the treatment of children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).The groundbreaking treatment will not be cheap: Drugmaker Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. said it would charge $3.2 million for the one-time IV treatment, the Associated Press reported. Like most medicines in the United States, the cost would be mostly paid by insurers.The drug will be used to treat children ages 4 through 5 who have a mutation in the DMD gene."Today’s approval addresses an urgent unmet medical need and is an important advancement in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a devastating condition with limited treatment options, that leads to a progressive...

FRIDAY, June 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Cancer affects families in numerous ways, and kids whose parents have had cancer are more likely to be hungry and to go without everyday essentials than their peers, a new American Cancer Society study reveals.“Cancer is a life-threatening disease, and parents with a history of cancer are often saddled with worry about paying for food, the rent or mortgage, and other monthly bills,” said lead author Zhiyuan (Jason) Zheng, senior principal scientist of health services research at the cancer society.“Our earlier research has shown us how a parent’s diagnosis of cancer can impact a child’s physical and mental health, but not much was known about the social and economic impact until now. We hope these findings will help shine a spotlight...

FRIDAY, June 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- It’s not the late nights, but the smoking and drinking that happen during those late nights, that are killing people who are “night owls” earlier in life, a new study claims.Researchers studied twins in Finland for 37 years, looking at different chronotypes, the body’s natural inclination to sleep at a certain time.Although they saw that the evening types had a slightly increased risk of dying than the morning types, it was those other habits that were at the root of that greater likelihood of premature death, the study found. The findings were published June 15 in the journal Chronobiology International.“Our findings suggest that there is little or no independent contribution of chronotype to mortality,” said study author Dr....

FRIDAY, June 23, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Young adults who have even modest reductions in kidney function could face significant health risks, according to a new study. “The dogma is that healthy, young adults don’t need to worry about kidney function unless it drops to around 50% of the normal level, but our research suggests that even a more modest 20%-30% drop may have consequences," said co-author Dr. Manish Sood, a nephrologist and research chair for the prevention of kidney disease at the Ottawa Hospital in Canada. "We may want to have earlier conversations about prevention and monitoring,” Sood added in a hospital news release.The researchers studied more than 8 million adults in Ontario, Canada, examining health record data from 2008 to 2021 for every Ontario adult aged...