President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, making it the most significant health care legislation enacted in more than a decade. How will it affect health care? Millions of Americans covered by Medicare will see big reductions in costs for both health care and prescription drugs. And those covered by… read on > read on >
A smartphone video could detect a blocked blood vessel in your neck that could cause a stroke, a new study suggests. The American Heart Association says videos may provide a non-invasive way to screen people who are at risk of stroke. Nearly 87% of strokes are the ischemic type, which happens when fatty deposits build… read on > read on >
If you need to take a pill, you might want to take it lying down — on your right side, that is. Researchers studying how body positioning affects the absorption of pills found that one taken when a person was lying on the right side speeded pills to the deepest part of the stomach. That… read on > read on >
Strike up the band! A new study finds that the aerosols produced by wind instruments like trombones and flutes are no more concerning than those given off during normal speech and breathing. For the study, University of Pennsylvania researchers worked with the Philadelphia Orchestra to better understand how much aerosol was produced and dispersed by… read on > read on >
Millions of infant swings and rockers are being recalled because crawling babies can get entangled in straps that dangle beneath them. The recall applies to MamaRoo and RockaRoo swings and rockers manufactured by Thorley Industries of Pittsburgh. The company, which does business under the name 4moms, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced… read on > read on >
Affordable over-the-counter hearing aids will bring relief to millions of Americans suffering from hearing loss by mid-October, under a landmark proposal just announced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The final rule announced Tuesday creates a category of hearing aids that could be sold directly to consumers, without either a medical exam or a… read on > read on >
It’s well known that exposure to lead can harm young children’s brain development. Now a new study suggests that racial segregation may be compounding the detrimental effects of lead on Black children. The study, of close to 26,000 schoolchildren, found that Black children with elevated blood lead levels had worse scores on standardized reading tests.… read on > read on >
Methamphetamine is driving an epidemic of drug overdoses in rural America, a new study concludes. Researchers attribute the surge to meth laced with fentanyl or combined with an opioid that contains fentanyl. “Methamphetamine is increasingly contaminated or adulterated with fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin,” said lead researcher Dr. Todd… read on > read on >
First Lady Jill Biden has COVID-19 and is experiencing “mild symptoms,” according to her staff. “After testing negative for COVID-19 on Monday during her regular testing cadence, the First Lady began to develop cold-like symptoms late in the evening,” Biden’s communications director Elizabeth Alexander said in a statement released Tuesday. “She tested negative again on… read on > read on >
When it comes to taking your blood pressure at home, smart devices with lots of bells and whistles are no better than old-school monitors, which happen to cost much less. This is the main finding of a new study that compared high-tech devices that link to your smartphone and provide other useful health information with… read on > read on >
