Category: 4. Health

Less than a year after COVID-19 upended life as we know it and killed the first of what would become more than 7 million people, the FDA and other regulators around the world authorized the first mRNA vaccine. Co-developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the vaccine was based on new biotechnology that uses the body’s own machinery to…

For a disease afflicting 35.5 million people in the U.S., chronic kidney disease flies under the radar. Only half the people who have it are formally diagnosed.

The consequences of advanced chronic kidney disease are severe. When these essential organs can no longer do their job of filtering waste products from the blood, patients need intensive medical interventions that gravely diminish their quality of life.

As an assistant professor of nursing and an expert in population health,…

Nearly every modern medical treatment can be traced to research funded by the National Institutes of Health: from over-the-counter and prescription medications that treat high cholesterol and pain to protection from infectious diseases such as polio and smallpox.

The remarkable successes of the decades-old partnership between biomedical research institutions and the federal government are so intertwined with daily life that it’s easy to take them for granted.

However, the…

Two months ago, I wrote about recent research indicating that drinking coffee could be good for one’s health—resulting in a statistically significant decrease in mortality. (Caveat: The health benefits occur if one drinks coffee in the mornings, as opposed to spreading it throughout the day.)

I am now pleased to report that two more items—dark chocolate and placebos—can also be good for one’s health.

An international group of…

One of the method’s applications is to give a more complete sense of human ancestry, says Gideon Bradburd, U-M professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. For example, when you send your DNA off for a personalized ancestry report, the report you get back is…

“The cause of Kawasaki disease has been a mystery for over 50 years,” said Anne Rowley, MD, pediatric…

A harrowing new study published in Nature warns that sweeping cuts to global nutrition funding could result in 369,000 additional child deaths every year. The analysis, conducted by the Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium (ST4N), a global network of…

When you hop, run or jump, your legs behave like…

The study, which was published in the Journal of Health Psychology, looked at how patients with Long Covid experience their illness. The study found that many patients feel they have to prove their illness is physical to be taken seriously and, as a result, often reject psychological support, fearing it implies their symptoms…