Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    As If You Needed Another Reason to Eat Strawberries (with recipe)

    Whether draped atop shortcake, cooked with rhubarb and slathered over vanilla ice cream, or downed in the garden just after picking, strawberries are one of summer’s delights. Now, scientists at Cornell University find that this fragile fruit not only tastes great and contains vitamins but also may offer surprisingly potent benefits in the body’s fight […]

    By Janet Raloff
  2. Health & Medicine

    Centenarian Advantage: Some old folks make cholesterol in big way

    People who live to be nearly 100 and their offspring are more likely to have large cholesterol particles in their blood, a condition conducive to good health.

    By Nathan Seppa
  3. Health & Medicine

    Magnets, my foot!

    Shoe inserts with magnets have no more effect against foot pain than insoles without them.

    By Nathan Seppa
  4. Health & Medicine

    Danger, danger, cry injured cells

    Damaged cells may release uric acid to rouse the immune system.

    By John Travis
  5. Health & Medicine

    Do Arctic diets protect prostates?

    Marine diets appear to explain why the incidence of prostate cancer among Inuit men is lower than that of males anywhere else in the world.

    By Janet Raloff
  6. Health & Medicine

    Was President Taft cognitively impaired?

    President William Howard Taft apparently had sleep apnea, a breathing disorder that could explain his propensity to nod off.

    By Nathan Seppa
  7. Health & Medicine

    Making the heart burn

    Burning chest pain during a heart attack may stem from a protein that also responds to chili peppers.

    By John Travis
  8. Health & Medicine

    Coronary Fix: Coated inserts keep vessels unclogged

    Mesh cylinders called stents, which doctors use to prop open coronary arteries, work better when they are coated with sirolimus, a drug that inhibits the accumulation of cells along the device.

    By Nathan Seppa
  9. Health & Medicine

    Timing That First Spoonful: Diabetes risk reflects when cereals enter infant diet

    The timing of cereals' introduction into children's diets may affect their risk of developing type 1 diabetes, two studies suggest.

    By Ben Harder
  10. Health & Medicine

    One bug’s bane may be another’s break

    People who carry pneumococcus bacteria in their nasal passages may be partially protected against having their noses colonized by Staphylococcus aureus.

    By Ben Harder
  11. Health & Medicine

    Drug combination unexpectedly flops

    A combination of therapies that researchers anticipated would work well against HIV failed to stop the virus from replicating in more than half the volunteers who received it.

    By Ben Harder
  12. Health & Medicine

    Resistant staph spreads in communities

    Antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—once a problem limited mainly to health care settings—has become a menace in communities around the world.

    By Ben Harder