A lot of older adults have digestive diseases that can be debilitating. They can also be linked to loneliness and depression, a new study says. “These conditions are very common in ambulatory care,” said gastroenterologist Dr. Shirley Cohen-Mekelburg, who specializes in problems like inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis at University of Michigan… read on > read on >
For a needed mood boost, skip social media and strike up an in-person conversation with someone instead. Face-to-face socializing boosts mood more than screen time, a new study finds. People often expect that will be the case, but they don’t always follow that instinct, according to the researchers. “These findings suggest that people may use… read on > read on >
Many Medicare patients can’t get help close to home for brain and nervous system issues. Nearly 1 in 5 Medicare recipients in the United States live at least 50 miles from their neurologist. “Our study found a substantial travel burden exists for some people with neurologic conditions, including people living in areas with fewer neurologists… read on > read on >
Using both tobacco and marijuana is tied to significantly higher odds for depression and anxiety, a new study suggests. Among nearly 54,000 U.S. adults, those who used both substances experienced anxiety or depression at nearly twice the rate of nonusers, researchers found. “Smoking weed and tobacco does not help to deal with anxiety and depression,… read on > read on >
When some U.S. states made abortion illegal after the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding Roe v Wade in June 2022, women in those areas increased their searches for self-managed abortions. To come to that conclusion, researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) analyzed Google search results regarding self-abortion. “We found an increased number of… read on > read on >
A healthy lifestyle — especially getting enough sleep — may offer substantial protection against depression, new research suggests. The study, of more than 287,000 British adults, found that several lifestyle factors seemed to curb the risk of developing depression over the next nine years. Among them were eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise, staying… read on > read on >
COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are gradually increasing in the United States, as two new variants gain a foothold in the nation. And with that rise, more people are looking for COVID test kits. Hospitalizations rose by nearly 9% and deaths by nearly 11% in late August/early September, according to the latest tracking data from the… read on > read on >
Any head injury — even a mild one — raises a person’s risk of later having an ischemic stroke. Having multiple injuries increases that risk, even more so than the severity of a single traumatic brain injury (TBI), researchers report. “Our study found that those who experience two or more head injuries, including even mild… read on > read on >
A large number of drugs used to treat everything from multiple sclerosis to blood cancers to rheumatoid arthritis may cause a rare but often-fatal condition called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). But a simple genetic test can determine who has a 10-fold higher risk for developing this condition, which means those patients could discuss safer treatment… read on > read on >
Following an approval granted Monday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday signed off on new COVID boosters for Americans. “We have more tools than ever to prevent the worst outcomes from COVID-19,” CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in an agency news release announcing… read on > read on >
