An exceptionally pricey gene therapy cure for sickle cell disease could soon be available, but it’s not clear whether insurance companies will balk at the cost and deny coverage. On the surface, the gene therapy does not appear as cost-effective as the grinding medical care that sickle cell patients now receive, according to a new… read on > read on >
When it comes to mental health, men don’t always seek help when they need it. But maybe they should. June is Men’s Mental Health Month, so here are the most common mental health conditions men experience, the symptoms that may differ in men vs. women and what resources are available for those seeking treatment options.… read on > read on >
When the late Brown University researcher Catherine Kerr had cancer, she benefited from an ancient Chinese practice known as qigong and began looking into its impact on others. Now, her colleagues are building on Kerr’s work, studying how practicing qigong affects a person’s perception of fatigue in a small group of 24 female cancer patients… read on > read on >
WEDNESDAY, May 31, 2023 (American Heart Association News) — Melanie Wickersheim has no memory of the first time her heart gave her trouble. She was an infant, and her pediatric myocarditis – an inflammation of the muscular walls of the heart – resolved before she was old enough to know anything had ever been wrong.… read on > read on >
Girls have long been thought to have a language advantage over boys as infants. But new research finds that boys make more vocalization sounds than girls do in the early months of life. These squeals, growls and short word-like sounds such as “ba” or “aga” are precursors to speech, scientists say. And baby boys do… read on > read on >
An anti-inflammatory drug that has been around for over 2,000 years might help delay a very modern problem: hip and knee replacements. That’s the suggestion of a new study finding that older adults who used the drug — called colchicine — were less likely to need hip or knee replacement surgery over the next two… read on > read on >
Lack of energy for exercise is a common problem for folks with so-called long COVID. New research pinpoints the most likely reason why: diminished capacity to get the heart pumping fast enough to support the effort. The name for this is chronotropic incompetence. “The amount of aerobic exercise an individual can do is limited largely… read on > read on >
A nasal spray containing ketamine might help relieve migraine headaches when other treatments fail, a new study suggests. Ketamine is a synthetic anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects that is sometimes used intravenously for migraine headaches. It’s being tried for treatment-resistant depression, too. But it’s also a potentially addictive “party” drug so it is not for everyone.… read on > read on >
(HealthDay News) – Patients taking semaglutide for type 2 diabetes or weight loss should be careful about where they’re getting the medication, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday. Shortages of the drug, commonly sold as Wegovy and Ozempic, has led to the making of compounded versions of the drugs, which is combining or… read on > read on >
(HealthDay News) – Providing sick leave to restaurant workers could help prevent the spread of foodborne illness because ill workers are key drivers of outbreaks at restaurants, a new government report shows. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data on Tuesday covering 800 outbreaks of foodborne illness at restaurants between 2017 and… read on > read on >
