Category: 4. Health

Scleroderma, or systemic sclerosis refers to a disorder in which the skin and connective tissues of the body start to thicken and harden because of the overproduction of a protein called collagen. Sometimes other organs including heart and lungs may eventually be affected, and it can be fatal. There is a subset of scleroderma patients who have a condition called diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis, which often has a worse prognosis. Now, scientists have…

Advances in modern medicine allow us to treat fetuses and newborn babies for genetic or inherited diseases. Recent studies have expanded this capability from a small handful of conditions detected via heel stick tests to hundreds. A recent American Journal of Human Genetics study lists nearly 300 treatable fetal findings of actionable diseases.

Public health…

The flu sickens millions of people in the U.S. every year, and the past year has been particularly tough. Although infections are trending downward, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called the winter of 2024-2025 a “high severity” season with the highest hospitalization rate in 15 years.

Since early 2024, a different kind of flu called bird flu, formally known as avian influenza, has been spreading in birds as well as in cattle. The current bird flu outbreak has…

Many Americans were relieved when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act in place following the law’s third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision permitted widely supported policies to continue, such as ensuring health coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, allowing coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents’ plan, and removing annual and lifetime benefit limits.

But millions are still at risk of losing access to lifesaving medicine and…

When it comes to managing weight loss and type 2 diabetes with medications, research shows that it’s out with the old and in with the new.

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Pediatric infectious diseases experts stress the importance of vaccination against measles, one of the most contagious viruses, which is once more spreading in the United States. In the article published in Pediatrics, they update pediatricians on this vaccine-preventable disease, which was previously declared non-endemic in the U.S.

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Poor communications between health care workers contributed to 25% of hospital incidents that put patients’ safety at risk, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

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Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS-led research is reporting that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) targeting the precuneus may slow the progression of cognitive decline, impairments in daily functioning, and behavioral symptoms in…