Category: 4. Health

  • Are you really allergic to penicillin? A pharmacist explains why there’s a good chance you’re not − and how you can find out for sure

    Are you really allergic to penicillin? A pharmacist explains why there’s a good chance you’re not − and how you can find out for sure

    Imagine this: You’re at your doctor’s office with a sore throat. The nurse asks, “Any allergies?” And without hesitation you reply, “Penicillin.” It’s something you’ve said for years – maybe since childhood, maybe because a parent told you so. The nurse nods, makes a note and moves on.

    But here’s the kicker: There’s a good chance you’re not actually allergic to penicillin. About 10% to 20% of Americans report that they have a penicillin allergy, yet fewer than…

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    News Source: theconversation.com

  • How FDA panelists casting doubt on antidepressant use during pregnancy could lead to devastating outcomes for mothers

    How FDA panelists casting doubt on antidepressant use during pregnancy could lead to devastating outcomes for mothers

    At a meeting held by the Food and Drug Administration on July 21, 2025, a panel convened by the agency cast doubt on the safety of antidepressant medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, in pregnancy.

    Panel members discussed adding a so-called black box warning to the drugs – which the agency uses to indicate severe or life-threatening side effects – about the risk they pose to developing fetuses. Some of the panelists who attended had a history of…

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    News Source: theconversation.com

  • Reversing Alzheimer’s damage: Two cancer drugs demonstrate surprising power

    Reversing Alzheimer’s damage: Two cancer drugs demonstrate surprising power

    Scientists at UC San Francisco and Gladstone Institutes have identified cancer drugs that promise to reverse the changes that occur in the brain during Alzheimer’s, potentially slowing or even reversing its symptoms.

    The study first analyzed how Alzheimer’s disease altered gene expression in single cells in the human brain. Then, researchers looked for existing drugs that were already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and cause the opposite changes to gene expression.

    They…

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    News Source: www.sciencedaily.com

  • CVS Profits Eclipse $1 Billion As Aetna’s Costs Begin To Stabilize

    CVS Profits Eclipse $1 Billion As Aetna’s Costs Begin To Stabilize

    CVS Health Thursday reported $1 billion in…

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    News Source: www.forbes.com

  • How A 60-Year-Old Drug Developer Built A $4.4 Billion Biotech Treating ‘Butterfly Skin Disease’

    How A 60-Year-Old Drug Developer Built A $4.4 Billion Biotech Treating ‘Butterfly Skin Disease’

    Longtime drug developer Suma Krishnan was 51 when she cofounded Krystal Biotech. Now the company has one gene therapy on the market and more in the works.

    By Amy Feldman, Forbes Staff


    Longtime drug developer Suma Krishnan was in her late-40s when she had the idea for a topical gene therapy to treat a rare and terrible skin disorder in which the skin becomes as fragile as butterfly wings. In 2016, at 51, after a few months of modeling the idea and starting the process of patenting it, she…

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    News Source: www.forbes.com

  • How AI And Mini-Organs Could Replace Testing Drugs On Animals

    How AI And Mini-Organs Could Replace Testing Drugs On Animals

    Congress and the FDA are pushing pharmaceutical companies to replace animals with technology for drug research. That’s a long way off, but startups and industry stalwarts are working to make it happen.


    At Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, researchers have created something extraordinary: tiny, beating lab-grown “hearts.” Visible only under a microscope, the diminutive innards are called organoids. They can be grown in a matter of days from a patient’s own stem cells, and…

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    News Source: www.forbes.com

  • Cigna Profits Hit $1.5 Billion Despite Higher Costs

    Cigna Profits Hit $1.5 Billion Despite Higher Costs

    The Cigna Group reported a second quarter profit of $1.5 billion as its Evernorth health service business…

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    News Source: www.forbes.com

  • Fat melts away—but so does muscle: What Ozempic users need to know

    Fat melts away—but so does muscle: What Ozempic users need to know

    Popular GLP-1 drugs help many people drop tremendous amounts of weight, but the drugs fail to provide a key improvement in heart and lung function essential for long-term good health, University of Virginia experts warn in a new paper.

    The researchers emphasize that weight loss associated with GLP-1 drugs has many clear health benefits for people with obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart failure, including improving blood-sugar control, short-term cardiorenal benefits and improvements in…

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    News Source: www.sciencedaily.com

  • Max-dose statins save lives—here’s why doctors are starting strong

    Max-dose statins save lives—here’s why doctors are starting strong

    There is broad consensus that the overall body of evidence shows lowering LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol provides both statistically significant and clinically meaningful benefits in treating and preventing cardiovascular disease. Often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol, elevated levels of LDL can clog arteries and significantly increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

    In an invited editorial published in the current issue of Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine,…

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    News Source: www.sciencedaily.com

  • Why cold feels good: Scientists uncover the chill pathway

    Why cold feels good: Scientists uncover the chill pathway

    Researchers at the University of Michigan have illuminated a complete sensory pathway showing how the skin communicates the temperature of its surroundings to the brain.

    This discovery, believed to be the first of its kind, reveals that cool temperatures get their own pathway, indicating that evolution has created different circuits for hot and cold temperatures. This creates an elegant solution for ensuring precise thermal perception and appropriate behavioral responses to environmental…

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    News Source: www.sciencedaily.com