You are currently browsing Health.

Seniors In Medicare ‘Doughnut Hole’ More Likely To Stop Heart Drugs

Medicare patients who reach the annual gap in coverage for prescription drugs known as the “doughnut hole” are 57 percent more likely than those with continuous insurance coverage to stop taking drugs for heart-related conditions such as high blood pressure or heart disease. That’s the result of a study by researchers from the Harvard Medical [...]

Sebelius Lends Support To Vaccination Projects In Haiti

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is in Haiti today to support two big vaccination initiatives. One, a pilot project to prevent cholera, is already under way. The other, aimed at five childhood diseases, is set to begin later this week against . The wider campaign aims to vaccinate 211,000 infants across the country [...]

Plastic Surgeons Say Demand Is Surging For Chin Enhancements

Chin up. Literally. A big group of plastic surgeons say that chin enhancement was the fastest growing surgical procedure they performed for cosmetic purposes in the U.S. last year — up 71 percent to 20,680 operations. Now, it’s still a small number, overall, compared with breast augmentation, the No. 1 procedure at 307,180. But those [...]

Deadly ‘Choking Game’ Comes With Big Risks

Michele Galloway went looking for her son, Connor, one morning in their Webster, N.C., home to make sure the seventh-grader hadn’t overslept. “I opened the door and I found him,” Galloway said. “And he looked like he was standing up beside his bed. And I just said, ‘Connor you’re awake.’ And then I realized he [...]

Why Women Suffer More Migraines Than Men

One in four women has had a migraine. And, it turns out, the debilitating headaches affect three times more women than men. But why? Decades ago, these headaches were attributed to women’s inability to cope with stress, a sort of hysteria. Now they’re starting to figure out the factors that really make a difference. Today [...]

TEDMED Thursday: Sex, ‘Poo Tea’ And ALS

It takes more than a convoy of fire engines and an evacuation of the Kennedy Center first thing to stop TEDMED. I heard conflicting reports about what happened this morning, but the show went on — a few minutes late — once D.C.’s bravest were satisfied we’d all be safe. After a snappy tune from [...]

Bat On A Plane Triggers Rabies Hunt

In case you missed it last summer, a bat got loose in the cabin of a Delta flight bound for Atlanta from Madison, Wisc. For real. No Samuel L. Jackson movie sequel. The whole incident sounds so dry in the description just published in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly [...]

Vaccination Against Cholera Finally Begins In Haiti

After myriad delays and setback, health workers in Haiti are beginning to vaccinate against cholera. Today, 50,000 people living in the slums of Port-au-Prince will start to get immunized against the disease. This weekend, another 50,000 villagers in the low rice-growing areas of the Artibonite River valley will get their first doses of an oral [...]

TEDMED Takes Its Big Health Tent To Washington

The phenomenon that is TEDMED has rolled into the nation’s capital. And I’m camped out at the Kennedy Center for the nerdfest. What’s the big deal? I’m still trying to figure that out as the meeting is well into its second day. It’s an event, that’s for sure, and it’s supposed to be a way [...]

Drive On Tax Day At Your Own Risk

If you need another reason to be wary of Tax Day, some Canadian researchers have found one. Fatal car crashes rise on the deadline for filing federal taxes. That’s April 17 this year, if you’re making travel plans. Researchers from Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto combed 30 years’ worth of U.S. highway data to compare [...]