Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    Drug cuts risk of seizures in pregnancy

    An inexpensive drug treatment lessens the risk of seizures that sometimes strike and even kill women during pregnancy or immediately after delivery.

    By Ben Harder
  2. Health & Medicine

    USDA gives nod to irradiating meats

    The federal government approved food irradiation, the only technology known to kill an especially lethal strain of bacteria, for use on raw meats.

    By Janet Raloff
  3. Health & Medicine

    This roe’s got a fish-E surprise

    Scientists discovered a potent, new form of vitamin E, an antioxidant, in fish adapted for life in cold water.

    By Janet Raloff
  4. Health & Medicine

    The salmon that went moo

    People allergic to milk products could face potentially life-threatening risks by eating casein-treated fish.

    By Janet Raloff
  5. Health & Medicine

    Boning Up

    Biologists have discovered a mechanism for communication between two types of bone cell, and they're exploring the possible bone-growth-stimulating effect of popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins.

    By John Travis
  6. Health & Medicine

    Hemispheric Cross Talk: Brains show two sides of language function

    Some people coordinate language use with both sides of their brains, allowing them to retain verbal skills after damage to one side or the other.

    By Bruce Bower
  7. Health & Medicine

    Smart Drugs: Leukemia treatments nearing prime time

    Three new drugs stop acute myeloid leukemia in mice, suggesting the treatments will work in people with this deadly blood cancer.

    By Nathan Seppa
  8. Health & Medicine

    Chemical stops allergic reaction in tests

    Researchers have developed a protein that short-circuits allergic reactions in mice and in tissue cultures of human cells.

    By Damaris Christensen
  9. Health & Medicine

    Shuttling medicines via blood cells

    Researchers have developed a way of encapsulating drugs in red blood cells, which can be used to deliver low doses of anti-inflammatory drugs to cystic fibrosis patients.

    By Damaris Christensen
  10. Health & Medicine

    Standing Up to Gravity

    Studies in space can help physicians better understand a disorder in which patients get faint or dizzy while standing.

    By Damaris Christensen
  11. Health & Medicine

    Nerve cells of ALS patients harbor virus

    Fragments of viral genetic material show up with unusually high frequency in nerve tissue of patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, suggesting a link between the virus and this lethal illness.

    By Nathan Seppa
  12. Health & Medicine

    Efficient Germ: Human body boosts power of cholera microbe

    Some genes in the cholera-causing bacterium Vibrio cholerae are activated and others are silenced when the microbe passes through the human gut, changes that make the bacterium more virulent.

    By Nathan Seppa