The trees and shrubs in your neighborhood could be giving you a big health boost, a new study finds. People have lower levels of inflammation in neighborhoods where the number of trees and shrubs is more than doubled compared to other nearby locales, University of Louisville researchers reported this week at the International Society for…  read on >  read on >

“Rolling stop” laws that let bicyclists treat stop signs as yield signs are not dangerous, a new study demonstrates. Both bike riders and drivers perform safely in intersections once they’ve been informed about how the law works, results from lab experiments involving bicycle and motor vehicle simulators show. “The focus of previous research has been…  read on >  read on >

Recreational drug users are three times more likely to have repeated heart health emergencies than people who don’t use, a new study has found. About 11% of patients admitted to intensive cardiac care units have been using recreational drugs, said researcher Dr. Raphael Mirailles, a physician with the Hospital Lariboisiere in Paris. Overall, “recreational drug…  read on >  read on >

An improved test for Lyme disease could provide accurate results within 20 minutes, researchers report. The test — which resembles an AI-guided form of the at-home COVID-19 test — would be a vast improvement over the current two-part lab test that takes up to two weeks for results, researchers said. “A lot of folks find…  read on >  read on >

Your heart health before and after a heart attack might be influenced by how loud your neighborhood is, new research suggests. One study found that people under 50 were more prone to heart attack if they lived in a noisy area, while another study showed the prognosis for heart attack survivors was worse if neighborhood…  read on >  read on >

People with multiple sclerosis appear to have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests. MS patients are far less likely to have elevated blood levels of toxic proteins that form amyloid plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, researchers report. “Our findings imply that some component of the biology of…  read on >  read on >

During menopause, a woman’s blood cholesterol changes in a way that could harm her heart health, a new study warns. An increase in “bad” LDL cholesterol and a decrease in “good” HDL cholesterol occurs during menopause, according to research being presented Sept. 2 at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting in London. “Taken together,…  read on >  read on >