Colon Cancer Death Rates Are Falling Among the Young — But Only for Whites

TUESDAY, May 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Race and ethnicity matter when battling colon cancer, with young white patients facing notably better odds than Black, Hispanic or Asian patients, new research warns.

A look at colon cancer survival among Americans younger than 50 turned up a glaring discrepancy: Survival five y...

Medical Marijuana May Offer Safe Pain Relief for Cancer Patients

TUESDAY, May 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Cancer patients who use medical marijuana experience less pain and a better quality of life, Israeli researchers report.

And, their new study found, these patients were able to rely less on opioid painkillers, with minimal side effects.

"I hope people pay attention to the r...

COVID Can 'Rebound' After Treatment With Paxlovid, CDC Says

COVID-19 can make a comeback after an infected person has gone through a round of Paxlovid, the antiviral used to minimize a bout with the coronavirus, according to an advisory issued Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Recent case reports document that some patients with normal immune response who have complet...

AHA News: New Study Looks at Heart Defect Risk in Children of People With Heart Defects

Congenital heart defects may be much more common among children of women with heart defects than of men with heart defects, according to new research.

Smaller studies had already reported a higher offspring risk for mothers with congenital heart defects, or CHDs. But researchers wanted to confirm those findings in a larger population and a...

With Abortion Access Under Threat, Doctors Focus on 'Contraceptive Counseling'

TUESDAY, May 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Women are more apt to use birth control when doctors treat it like a routine preventive health service, a new research review shows.

The analysis of 38 past studies found that women were more likely to use contraception when doctors were proactive about counseling them on the opt...

Cancer Patients Have Even Greater Need for COVID Boosters: Study

Cancer patients continue to face more risk from COVID-19, even if they've been vaccinated.

Although vaccination is effective for most people who have cancer (even though they're immunocompromised by the disease and their cancer treatments), its effectiveness wanes more rapidly in this group, by three to six months compared to the ge...

Your Daily Vitamin D From Tomatoes? Gene Tweak Could Make It Happen

TUESDAY, May 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A genetically engineered tomato could one day rival salmon as a dietary source of vitamin D, if early research pans out.

British scientists used gene "editing" to produce the tomato, which is chock full of provitamin D3, a precursor that the body can convert into vitamin D.

AHA News: Family's Heart Disease History Inspired Her Fitness – and Got Her to the Base of Mount Everest

Lisa Abbott scrolled through the online auction offerings of the American Alpine Club's fundraiser. As a rock climber, ice climber, scuba diver and marathon runner, she enjoyed daydreaming about the various trips up for grabs.

One offering stood out: a guided two-week trek through the Khumbu Valley in Nepal to the base camp of Mount Everes...

Pandemic Has U.S. Hospitals Overwhelmed With Teens in Mental Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation it imposed took a dramatic toll on kids' mental health, increasing the demand for services in an already overburdened system.

As a result, many kids found themselves being "boarded" in emergency departments as they awaited care, according to a new study conducted at Boston Children's Hospi...

U.S. Births Rose in 2021 for First Time in 7 Years

TUESDAY, May 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) – It may not qualify as a baby boom, but U.S. births were up in 2021 for the first time in years.

New federal government data show a 1% increase in births from 2020, with more than 3.6 million births last year. It was the first increase in seven years.

The general fertility rate for 2021 also...

A Child's Pet Dog May Shield Them From Crohn's Disease

Add a lower risk of Crohn's disease to the many benefits of having a dog during childhood, a new study suggests.

Sorry, cat lovers, researchers didn't find a similar benefit for you.

"We did not see the same results with cats, though we are still trying to determine why," said senior author Williams Turpin, a research associate with ...

Annual Health Care Costs Rise by $2,000 for Americans Who Vape

Think vaping is cheap?

A study from the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing reports that annual health care costs for users of electronic cigarettes were $2,024 more per person than for those who use no tobacco products.

That adds up to about $15 billion a year in the United States.

"Health care costs att...

Can Mindfulness Really Change Your Brain?

Meditation and other mindfulness practices may improve your attention, but they won't lead to structural changes in your brain in the short-term, according to a new study.

Previous studies have shown that learning new skills, aerobic exercise and balance training could trigger changes in the brain, and some research has suggested that min...

Making U.S. Cities Greener Could Have Saved Thousands of Lives

Creating more parks and other green spaces could have prevented tens of thousands of deaths in dozens of large U.S. cities over the past two decades, a new study says.

"We've known that living in greener areas can have a positive impact on our physical and mental health, but there is a lack of data on how changes in greenness distribution...

Gay Community Most Vulnerable to Monkeypox Threat, Vaccines Available Soon: CDC

At a Monday media briefing, U.S. public health officials said they are tracking a handful of travel-related monkeypox cases that have been reported across the country.

Anyone can catch monkeypox, but at this time it appears to be "circulating globally in some parts of the gay community," Dr. John Brooks, a medical epidemiologist with the...

1 Dirty Pool, Many Cases of E. Coli: Summer's Swimming Danger

MONDAY, May 23, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- As the weather warms and families flock to pools, dirty water may dampen the fun.

Swimmers at a Pennsylvania community pool learned that the hard way when in June 2021 more than a dozen kids were seriously sickened by two types of bacteria, and .

"These are pathogens that ...

Lower Incomes May Mean Lower Survival After Heart Attack

MONDAY, May 23, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- If you're poor and have a severe type of heart attack, the chance you'll live through it is significantly lower than that of someone with more money, new research shows.

The finding underscores the need to close a divide in health care that hits low-income people hard, said lead r...

Emergency Shipment of Baby Formula Arrives From Europe

A 35-ton shipment of hypoallergenic baby formula from Switzerland arrived in the United States on Sunday, the first delivery in what the Biden administration is calling "Operation Fly Formula" to deal with a nationwide shortage.

The 132 pallets of formula arrived in Indianapolis on a military C-17 cargo plane from Germany, and will be fed ...

3-Dose Pfizer COVID Vaccine Spurs Strong Response in Youngest Kids

Pfizer/BioNTech says a three-dose regimen of its COVID-19 vaccine appears to provoke a strong immune response in the youngest age group of children — those aged 6 months to 5 years.

This is the only age group not yet approved for COVID-19 vaccination by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to CNN, Pfizer said it plan...

AHA News: Monitoring Blood Pressure at Home Can Be Tricky. Here's How to Do It Right.

Knowing your blood pressure is a basic part of good health. But monitoring it at home can get complicated.

"It sounds easy – you buy a device, smack the cuff on your upper arm and push a button, right? It's not so easy," said Dr. Daichi Shimbo, co-director of the Columbia Hypertension Center in New York.

High blood pressure is a co...