Latest Health News

THURSDAY, Aug. 13, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Stroke is more deadly among Black people than whites, and the reason may come down to genetics. Researchers who studied the genomes of more than 21,000 Black people found that a common variation near the HNF1A gene was tied to an increased risk of stroke in people of African descent. The gene has been linked to stroke and heart disease. "Given the undue burden that people of African ancestry endure from stroke and other cerebrovascular disease, the lack of investigation of risk factors in this group has been a substantial gap," said Dr. Bradford Worrall, a neurologist at University of Virginia Health in Charlottesville. "Our work is an important step toward filling that gap, albeit with much more work to be done. These findings will...

THURSDAY, Aug. 13, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The pandemic is taking a big toll on Americans' psyches: A new government report found that about 41% of adults surveyed in late June "reported an adverse mental or behavioral health condition." That's a big rise from 2019. For example, the data shows that the number of Americans suffering from an anxiety disorder had tripled by late June compared to the same time last year, and the number of those with depression had jumped fourfold. The findings, based on surveys conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from June 24-30, also show that "one quarter of [survey] respondents reported symptoms of trauma- and stressor-related disorder." About 1 in every 10 survey respondents also said they'd started or increased their...

THURSDAY, Aug. 13, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Burning fossil fuels account for about 100,000 air pollution-related deaths in the United States each year -- but there are other less obvious sources of deadly air pollution, a new study warns. "People usually think of power plants and cars, but nowadays, livestock and wood stoves are as big of a problem. It's also our farms and our homes," said Sumil Thakrar, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Minnesota. Thakrar and his colleagues also found that while government regulations have led to reduced pollution from electricity production and transportation, other sources have received less attention, including agriculture and residential buildings. The researchers focused on a particularly dangerous type of air pollution called...

THURSDAY, Aug. 13, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- New York City residents have seen their fair share of health crises over the past century, but a new study finds that this year's COVID-19 pandemic may have been more deadly than even the killer flu outbreak of 1918. Crunching the numbers from New York City during the worst two months of the 1918 flu epidemic (October-November of that year) and the two months encompassing the height of this year's COVID-19 outbreak (March 11- May 11), researchers said the latter may have been the more lethal. After accounting for historical changes in public hygiene and medical care, "the relative increase [in NYC deaths] during early COVID-19 period was substantially greater than during the peak of the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic," said a team of...