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Hormones And Metabolism Conspire Against Dieters

There are some fresh insights from Australia that help explain why it’s so difficult for dieters to keep off the weight they lose. Willpower will only take you so far, in case you haven’t run that experiment yourself. Turns out our bodies have a fuel gauge, not entirely unlike the gas gauge on our cars, [...]

A Tweak To Health Law Would Eliminate Medicaid For Some

Should the middle class be eligible for Medicaid? The health program, funded jointly by the feds and the states, was devised to cover the poor. But if a provision in last year’s health law isn’t changed that could be the case for people with pretty healthy incomes. So today, the House approved a bill that [...]

High-Tech Shoes Aim To Stop Wandering Alzheimer’s Patients

Shoes that make the news often look funny. Whether they’re touting health benefits like those toning shoes that didn’t quite pan out or the glove-like footwear being marketed as the anti-shoe. But some GPS-enabled shoes designed to help keep track of people with Alzheimer’s, look exactly like some shoes already popular with the elderly. And [...]

Advice To Guideline-Writers: Keep Patients Involved in PSA Decision

Hey guys, feeling confused about the fuss over PSA screening for prostate cancer? Listen up. A couple of docs who ponder such medical dilemmas say there’s a middle ground between business-as-usual and throwing PSA tests out altogether. You may recall the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force kicked up a ruckus earlier this month when it [...]

Looking For Lung Cancer With A Yearly X-Ray Doesn’t Reduce Deaths

The drive to test healthy people for common cancers rests on the idea that finding malignancies early can trigger life-saving treatment. But the evidence that some of the tests will actually reduce mortality is sometimes lacking or is less than clear cut for the people who’ll get tested. Now, a big federally funded study finds [...]

New Hope for Kids with Fragile X

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City are looking for men and boys with a rare genetic disease known as Fragile X- for a new treatment program.

Men Can Be Binge-Eaters, Too

When we think of eating disorders, the classic image is a waif-thin, anorexic woman. But here’s a question for men: Do you find yourself fasting after eating too much? Or maybe pushing through an insanely long run or workout, trying to compensate for overeating through intense exercise? These are behaviors associated with binge-eating, a serious [...]

Supporters Of Health Overhaul Look To Reclaim ‘Obamacare’

“Thanks Obamacare.” Sounds like sarcasm, right? Sure, opponents of the federal law overhauling health care tagged it with the “Obamacare” moniker to belittle the measure even before it had passed. To many of them, the law is an ill-considered attempt to fix America’s health care problems with a one-size-fits-all approach that thrusts the government into [...]

Flu Shots: Far from Perfect, Still Advised

Flu shots are safe, cheap and pretty much universally recommended. But how well do they really protect us from getting sick? The most comprehensive review to date, just published online by The Lancet, suggests that flu vaccines aren’t as effective as many of us have thought. An analysis of 31 published studies conducted since 1998 [...]

Employers May Not Rush To Drop Health Coverage After All

Despite claims to the contrary, a insightful economic analysis suggests that it wouldn’t be in most employers’ business interests to stop providing health insurance when the main coverage provisions of the federal health overhaul kick in. The work, done by researchers from the Urban Institute for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (a supporter of NPR), [...]